PUBLISHING NEWS

Publishing News & Past Meanderings from the Archives

March 13, 2025 – The Isle of Mist by W.R. Arnold has been released! Visit W.R. Arnold’s author page to order. Tricia Arnold’s historical supernatural horror story, Harlequinade is now available on Inkitt. Check out our serial page to read it.

February 24, 2025 – As Vella ends, we have made some of our serial stories available on other platforms. Tricia Arnold’s serial stories are available on Patreon, Inkspired, Ream, and Radish. You can find J. Arnold’s story Hiraeth on Radish. W.R. Arnold’s stories are also on Inkspired. We now have a new website, with a built in store where you can purchase print editions, ebooks, and author merch! Supporting independent authors, publishing companies, and book stores is an urgent matter. Shopping small brings about positive change in your community and the world.

May 28, 2022 – The new epic fantasy fiction novel, Draekkon’s Fire by Tricia Arnold has been released as a serial! New episodes will be available weekly, with an ebook release and paperback coming soon. The book will also be produced in a handmade hardcover and paperback release. These special editions will be autographed by the author and contain extra features. This book continues to grow in terms of word count. Readers may be able to enjoy this book as a series rather than a standalone volume.

June 27, 2021 – A new issue of the Hidden Side Coloring Book series has arrived! Outlines of Space by Jessica Arnold is available in print (with a digital .pdf on Google Play coming soon). From the description: Color in the spaces of the galaxy! See astronauts traveling amongst the stars, discover new planets and meet new friends or perhaps a foe from this universe. Order the print version on Amazon.

June 17, 2021 – Jessica’s latest book in her Hidden Side Coloring Book Series has been released! The pages of Color Your Zodiac come alive as Jessica has created a character or creature from every sign. Learn more about each print book in the series by visiting Amazon here. The books are also available on Google Play as a digital .pdf download here, along with Jessica’s other books.

June 5, 2021 – Expect to see the newest fantasy fiction novel by Patricia Arnold released by the end of the summer. Draekkon’s Fire is nearing completion, and weighing in at 100k words, this book is an epic tale of dragons, kingdoms at war and plenty of compelling characters! The cover art for this book has taken almost as long as the novel to create, with author Patricia Arnold creating the artwork based on the main characters: Aeve Draekkon, Storm Crossley, the sorceress Datura and of course, an ice dragon. There will be more to come on the release of this book, including the cover reveal.

October 20, 2018 – Patricia Arnold attended Unreality Fest at Barnes and Noble, Battle Creek as an author panel member and fantasy fiction writer.

October 2018 – New book releases: Building a Handmade Business: Growing a Creative Company by Patricia Arnold is available for pre-order (with a full release at the end of the month), Christmas Short Stories and Poems now has a print edition and Polly Penny’s New Friend by Lisa Arnold has been released as an audio book produced by Alun Bessette.

September 2018 – W.R. Arnold released his debut scifi book, Endangered. Available in ebook and print! Cover design by Patricia Arnold.

August 2018 – Jessica’s newest book, Nobody Still Can’t Take My Happy (Emily’s World Series) will be released as an audio book narrated by Oliver Hunt (coming soon). Get a free trial subscription to Audible to learn more. Details coming soon.

Summer 2017 – The Skeleton Sketches Coloring Book by Jessica Arnold and Lisa Arnold has been released! Available beginning June 9, 2017 as both a print book and printable! Available on Amazon, Google Play and Gum Road (to name a few). Description: Skeleton Sketches has twenty-three pages of mind relaxing coloring enjoyment! Color these fun-loving skeleton sketches! This coloring book features the imaginative illustrations of sisters Jessica Arnold and Lisa Arnold. Your spooky coloring adventure includes skulls, bones and plenty of fun! There are rock-and-roll skeletons, dancing skeletons, psychedelic skulls and bony pirates guarding treasure! Hip grinning skeletons and candy skulls are celebrating the Day of the Dead, Halloween, or just hanging out – all waiting for you to add some color! Each illustration is drawn by hand from the artists’ imagination. Also included are original illustrations by Patricia Arnold and William Arnold.

January 21, 2015 – It’s been very cold in Michigan. This morning it was -16 degrees in my neck of the woods. What can help a Michigander weather this bitter cold? Hot drinks, homemade gingerbread cookies and a book. Whether you’re reading one or writing one in colder climes, make sure you add another log to the fire and keep your warm drink handy. Gingerbread is my favorite cookie, I read somewhere that there’s something in those cookies that creates feelings of happiness. Sounds good and tastes yummy to me! The editing for Dusty Rose is keeping me company. It does have it’s flaws! I’m not even into Chapter 3, so that means only 14 single spaced pages of 80 are edited. This is the most ambitious editing session I’ve ever attempted. At least two thousand words have been cut from the text, all because I’ve created a new perspective. I’ve backed up the original version just in case I can’t make this idea work. Why am I changing it so drastically? I’m used to writing non-fiction, where facts need to be researched and be as accurate as possible. I mainly write non-fiction that I can back up with facts. For me, this is how it’s done. Fiction is different. Characters need a say in the outcome and they need to tell the story in their own words. They can be tragically flawed, but I’m giving them the chance to tell the story in their words. This should be an interesting experiment.

January 14, 2015 – My novel, Dusty Rose is in the final stages of editing! Every 10 – 14 days I plan on adding a new chapter. After getting through a busy holiday, I wanted to make this stage of working on my novel as entertaining as possible. For this book, I wanted to change up my normal marketing path with something new. I am aiming for the widest distribution possible! Good luck to all my fellow authors as we all navigate the path to a final manuscript! May you all be successful in the New Year! Cheers!

November 23, 2014 – I reached the milestone of 25,194k on my new novel, Dusty Rose. The first thing I noticed was my aching wrists and arms. My laptop is feeling the strain as well. I’m pretty sure I’m in need of a new keyboard! Another thing I noticed is the panic when I discovered my story has a few plot holes. It’s difficult not to want to pause to fix those, but overall I think that it’s important to just keep the story rolling. It’s not that I think it will solve itself! I’m just saving it for the editing process. Just when I found generating new words difficult, I found a chapter (more of an outline) that I didn’t want to work on previously. This helped me with my word count. Dividing up chapters can create whole new scenes in a story. I also invested some time in the ending, asking myself where I want my characters to be at that point.

November 9, 2014 – The newest edition of Christmas Poems & Stories is now available for the 2014 Christmas Season! Every year since it was released, this book gains additional holiday essays, stories and poems. Rather than create additional volumes, we’ve chosen to continue to expand the book each year. It’s unknown what the final word count will be when a second volume is created, but we love the idea that this is the book that literally keeps giving each year! More stories, more poems and now illustrations. This year’s contribution is a short story called A Fairy Merry Christmas. The story is illustrated, and the updated eBook version offers improved formatting. A print version of this title will be forthcoming, but the expanding nature of this title will postpone this possibility for the time being.

June 19, 2012 – Our independent publishing company is now 4 Oak Books. We will continue to offer educational resources and print books along with audiobooks and ebooks. Why 4 Oak Books? Because I have a unique, “number four” oak tree on my property!

April 23, 2012 – Consider some selections for the kids this spring! Our have some uplifting reads your child will enjoy! The talent of these young authors is tremendous!

December 9, 2011 – As Christmas draws nearer, and 2011 comes to a close, we would like to thank our readers who have made our successes and inspiration possible. Our book, Christmas Poems and Stories is a collection of Christmas themed short stories and poems. I am Good at Lots of Things written by Jessica Arnold, continues to inspire.

July 1, 2011 – The print version of Strictly G.I.: The WWII Letters of Cpl. Wanda M. Renn has been released for print. It’s a reasonably priced perspective on WWII from the point of view of a WAAC or WAC based on V-mail correspondence.

April 5, 2011: Strictly G.I.: The WWII Letters of a WAAC is available. These letters are an actual account from the perspective of a female soldier.