November was a hectic month for IFWG Publishing/IFWG Publishing Australia and has made up a lot of lost ground from the previous 12 months or so. I would like to share with you some highlights/trends:

Firstly, we fully established the IFWG Publishing Australia imprint, and thus far it has published six titles – the ‘reboot’ of the first two Brumbies books, and the third instalment of the five-book series; Kings of Under-Castle, Paper Magic, and the ‘best of’ anthology of SQ Mag’s 2012 publications, Star Quake 1 (an annual concern). All have been picked up with enthusiasm by readers, and the authors have been very good at assisting with marketing. We are hoping that we can slip in a seventh title before New Year – The Infinity Trap, by Ian C Douglas, a British work, and one that we view as having potential for sale in Australia as much as the UK. Keep your eyes peeled on the IFWG Publishing Australia site, as well as the social media outlets.

IFWG Publishing US is catching up as well, as reported in our last few Newsletters. Loria, The Bounty Hunter, Numen Yeye, Blood Sabers, and Unlikely Hero are highlights, and we are about to publish Sea Lily by Brooke Breazeale and illustrated by David I Faust. This last project has been long in coming, as is often the case when many quality illustrations are required, and when it coincides with our earlier hiatus. This book will be published in full colour – the second time we are doing this, as Constellation Station was our first, wonderful effort.

Perhaps an understated achievement over the last four weeks is the complete overhaul of the IFWG Publishing web site, as well as the blog site. It was clear that we needed to iron out the wrinkles, and wipe the cobwebs off of it. Since the Australian site appeared to be a more workable platform, we bit the bullet and made the move over the last few weeks. It was largely successful as a transition, and all reports are favourable about the end result. We like it. What’s more, we have dramatically improved the commerce functionality of the site, and it is easy to navigate, and pretty easy to purchase our titles on both sites.

The work we have put into our business over recent months has paid off, and we are very optimistic for the coming year. We have some more backlog titles to publish but they are small in number, and we have 2014-scheduled work ahead of us.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a joyous Christmas, and a prosperous New Year.

Gerry Huntman
Chief Editor, IFWG Publishing
Managing Director, IFWG Publishing Australia Publisher,
Publisher, SQ Mag