| 11/05/07 Double Edge Press Title on Top 10 Bestseller List Third Time in Three Months. |
PRESS RELEASE:
NOVEMBER 28, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VISITING AUTHOR, PUBLISHER HAS MANY LOCAL TIES
Rebecca Melvin, owner of Double Edge Press publishing and author of the
historical romance novel In the Brief Eternal Silence will be doing a book signing
at Borders Book Store, Meadowbrook Mall on December 8, 2007. Although being
several hours from her own home, she expects to feel quite at home. “I spent a
lot of time in the area as a child,” she explains, “and still make occasional visits to
Holly River State Park.”
Melvin’s father was Lyda D. Curtis, who grew up in Weston, WV. As he was the
oldest of thirteen children by Hurley and Verna Bennett Curtis, she still has a
great many relatives in the Weston and Buckhannon areas. “The Bob Evans just
below the Meadowbrook Mall is a regular stopping point when we travel into the
area,” she laughs. “I imagine we’ll be hitting it again for a late breakfast on the
day of the book signing.”
Although her father, L.D. Curtis, married an Ohioan, they settled in Pennsylvania
south of Pittsburgh. Melvin is married and has four children of her own and
resides in a small Pennsylvania town called Scenery Hill. It is there that she runs
her own publishing company, Double Edge Press. “I started out writing many
years ago,” she explains. “When I wrote In the Brief Eternal Silence, I had no
idea of the journey this one book would lead me on. I had written for over
twenty years and four other books prior to it, but this one was special.” Coming
in at a whopping 544 pages, Melvin considers this book her masterpiece.
“Writing it was like receiving a gift from God. I wrote over 750 manuscript pages
in forty days and lost twenty pounds in the process. But what I ended with was
so incredible I couldn’t believe I wrote it. Many authors go their entire lives
without ever hitting that level. I was one of the lucky ones.”
Unlike her usual habit of leaving her work with her agent to market and moving
on to another story, Melvin actively pursued marketing this work. “I knew the
length was problematic, and the only offers I received wanted major cuts in the
material, roughly a third of the book to bring it down to a more manageable 300
pages. I knew this had nothing to do with the story and more to do with saving
on print costs. I wasn’t willing to go that route, not with this one.” Instead, in
typical Curtis fashion, she began investigating what it would take to start her
own publishing house. She was already doing free-lance editing for other
writers’ work, and she began to track what kind of offers the better writers
were receiving and how satisfied they were with the offers. It didn’t take long
for her to find another author with a very good book unhappy with the offers he
was receiving. Melvin says, “It was really strange. At the same time I’m toying
with the idea of publishing myself, he approaches me and says, ‘You’re already
doing the editing, why don’t you do the publishing, too?’” So, in April of 2005,
she registered her business and started a publishing house.
Since then, her publishing house has published nine books by seven different
authors, including a two-time Maxwell Award winner and a retired Deputy
Director under the Secretary of Defense. “We have historical romances, action-
adventures, CIA suspense, auto-biographies and one dog story,” Melvin says.
“We have three more titles already lined up for 2008.” Her publishing house is
listed with two out of three of the major distributors, they put out their own
catalog, and sales have tripled this year over last. “If we can keep up that trend,
we will be in a very, very good spot by next year’s end,” Melvin concludes.
For now, she is simply looking forward to her book signing at the Meadowbrook
Mall, the second of two back-to-back weekends of appearances at different
locations. “It’s nice to come home for the holidays,” she says.
Rebecca Melvin will be at Borders Book Store, Meadowbrook Mall in Bridgeport,
WV, on December 8, 2007 from 12 noon to 4 p.m. For further information on the
book signing you can call Borders at 304 842 3203.
For further information on Double Edge Press you can visit on-line at
http://doubleedgepress.com.