About

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Hi, I’m Melissa Alvarez. I’m glad you found my site today. Let me tell you a little about me and my qualifications for the services offered here at BookCovers.Us. I’ve been involved in the publishing business since 2000 when I self-published, printed and distributed my first book and have many years of experience under my belt. I’m a multi-published award winning author in both fiction and non-fiction. I’ve had seven books published with Llewellyn Worldwide, the world’s oldest and largest independent publisher of books for body, mind, and spirit. These titles include 365 Ways to Raise Your Frequency, Your Psychic Self, Animal Frequency, Believe and Receive, The Simplicity of Cozy, Earth Frequency, and Llewellyn’s Little Book of Spirit Animals. Previously, I owned and operated New Age Dimensions Publishing, where we successfully published and distributed nearly 200 titles. When I ran my publishing company, I designed and formatted all of the eBook and print covers, designed the interiors of every print book, was the editor-in-chief including acquisitions and managed a team of editors.

Covers: As both a traditionally published author and self-publisher, I know how important a good quality book cover is to sales. One of the keys to successful publishing is to have a cover that stands out from the crowd. I know that I’ve personally bought a book based on it’s cover and have been pleasantly surprised to find a new author that I love! When your cover stands out, and is a professional design, then the reader trusts that the content is going to be excellent. Your custom designed cover will be a work of art, something that you can be proud to show off.  With a custom cover I work hard to bring your vision to life and portray the book through the cover. I spend long hours finding the right graphics that fit your blurb and description of your characters. I often spend more hours working on the sample covers than I’ve listed in the package price because I want you to love them all so much that you’ll have a hard time choosing! 

Editing: I recently added book services for authors to my website. Having worked as an acquisitions editor, editor-in-chief, book reviewer as the Guide to Romance Fiction at About.com, the Paranormal Examiner at Examiner.com, contest judge, and multi-published and award winning author in fiction and nonfiction; I have the experience and skills to make your book shine. 

If you’re new to self-publishing, or a seasoned author just venturing into self-publishing, I can help. I’ve designed fiction and non-fiction covers for bestselling internationally known authors who brought out their back list and for new authors just starting out. I can help you realize your dream of being a published author or help you prepare for your next release. I’m offering a wide variety of pre-designed covers in a lot of genres. I have reopened my custom designed eBook covers and have recently added select editing services, but I’m not doing any design work for print books at this time.

Here at BookCovers.us I help self-publishing, professional, and indie authors by offering artistically designed custom eBook covers, pre-designed eBook covers, beta reader and editing services. I can help you avoid costly mistakes and produce a quality product.

If you’d like to know more details about my experience in the publishing industry please check out my official bio below.

 

Official Bio:

Melissa Alvarez is an award winning author, graphic artist, website designer and holds a BA degree from Virginia Tech. She writes nonfiction under her real name and fiction under the pen name Ariana Dupré. Melissa has published seven titles with Llewellyn Worldwide and has many self-published titles.

Melissa has always been an entrepreneur and owned many successful businesses with her husband. Melissa became involved in the publishing industry in 2000 when she formed New Age Dimensions to self-publish her first book, The Phoenix’s Guide To Self-Renewal, which was released in January 2001. It quickly landed in Amazon.com’s Top 1000 where it stayed until it went out of print. At the time, Melissa was manufacturing the 416-page book in her home and eventually couldn’t keep up with the demand. Melissa says, “The learning process that went with the publication of this book was phenomenal. I jumped into the industry in an unconventional way but it was fun and worthwhile.”

Between March of 2004 and February of 2006, Melissa, founder and CEO, operated New Age Dimensions as a small press. During this time Melissa was the editor-in-chief but eventually hired a team of editors to help handle the work flow. She designed the eBook and print covers, created the print book layouts and ebook files, designed and maintained websites for the company as well as some of the author’s websites. New Age Dimensions won awards for website design and the books published received numerous five star reviews and won many awards including EPPIE’S, the Oscars of ePublishing. The company went out of business due to Hurricane Wilma. Melissa is now offering to the public some of the same services that she performed as a publisher, self-published author, and traditionally published author, through  BookCovers.us. Additional services may be added in the future, depending upon demand and Melissa’s schedule.

Because of the industry contacts made when Melissa worked as The Guide To Romance Fiction at About.com, she decided to release her first paranormal romantic suspense novel, Night Visions, under the pen name Ariana Dupré. She wanted the book to stand on its own, to receive good or bad reviews because of the writing, not because she knew a lot of people in the romance industry or because she owned a publishing company. Melissa didn’t want her jobs, past or present, to affect the reviews in any way (good or bad). So she kept Ariana’s real identity a secret until enough reviews came in that she knew the book had indeed earned success on its own. Night Visions became a multiple award winning title as did Talgorian Prophecy. Melissa also has a novella titled, Paradise Designs, and a short story titled, Talgorian Dragon, available. For a full list of all of her titles please visit her author website at MelissaA.com.

In the past, Melissa was a regular columnist for Examiner.com as their first Paranormal Examiner, a paranormal columnist for Suite Magazine’s Thirteenth Floor, a writing correspondent for The American Kennel Club, a contest judge, a freelance editor, and she is considered a publishing expert and was listed on a Writer’s Digest Top 100 website as such. She has appeared on many radio shows and podcasts in the same capacity and as a Llewellyn author promoting her books. As a well known intuitive with experience in many different areas of metaphysics and as a paranormal romantic suspense author, Melissa wrote an article about the emergence of the psychic fiction genre for Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine. She has also been published in The Writer’s Net Anthology of Prose, Paranormal Experiences Volume One, New Age Dimensions Holiday Extravaganza, and is quoted or featured in Book Marketing A-Z by Francine Silverman, How To Operate A Successful Pizza & Sub Restaurant by Shri Henkel, Successful Meetings by Shri Henkel and Book Marketing 101 by Nikki Leigh. Melissa has many self-published titles through her self-publishing company, Adrema Press. Some of the nonfiction titles are the Animal Frequency Oracle Deck, The Phoenix’s Guide to Self-Renewal, Ghosts, A Spirit Guide and A Past Life: Four True Experiences with the Other Side,  Analyze Your Handwriting,  Your Color Power, Chakra Divination® Cards and Charts, Chakra Divination® Ultimate Balance Journal, The Essential Guide to Chakra Divination®, Paranormal Investigative Groups Around the World, Homemade Recipes for Horse Treats, and Christmas Desserts. Her fiction titles (some published as Melissa Alvarez writing as Ariana Dupré) include: Briar Mountain, Paradise Designs, Night Visions, Talgorian Prophecy, and Talgorian Dragon. She also has a children’s book released titled, Penelope Panda’s Shooting Star. For a full list of all of Melissa’s books please visit MelissaA.com.

Melissa was the founder of International Paranormal Fiction Month, a Publishing Expert at Moonspinners Ask the Experts (Writer’s Digest Top 100 Website), a Spirituality & Publishing Expert at BookPromotionNewsletter.com. She has also been the speaker at several RWA Chapter Meetings discussing Psychic Fiction and Paranormal Romance. She previously ran two paranormal groups at Yahoo.com and was listed in the top ten psychics on bestpsychics.com and on Bob Olsen’s Best Psychic Directory. She was the host of The Reader’s Round Table radio show where she introduced authors to readers and psychic readers to the show’s listeners and co-hosted the Celtic Seers Radio Show. Melissa can speak or write about the following topics:

· The publishing industry – how to get started, self publishing, owning a small press, critiquing, manuscript formatting, book cover design, interior print formatting, romance fiction, the submission process, looking at both sides of the industry as a publisher and author, ebooks, psychic fiction, marketing, online promotion and many other topics.

· Metaphysics – clairvoyance, past lives & past life readings, ghosts & hauntings, developing your psychic abilities, spiritual awakenings, spirit guides, empathic abilities, psychometry, telepathy, divination, life paths and lessons, connecting with your higher self, unlocking latent abilities, meditation on the go, crystals, chakras, tarot, pendulums, third eye activation, karma, soul quests, palmistry, elemental spirits, protecting with white light and much more.

Melissa can be reached via email at sales at book covers dot us without the spaces or through her website: http://MelissaA.com.