Full post here, including accounts to follow.

It's the last day of Latinx Heritage Month and I am feeling:

EXHAUSTED
ELATED
CUP IS FULL
COMUNIDAD WITH HEART AND AUTHENTICITY

While also feeling--

ERASED
IGNORED
NOT CELEBRATED OUTSIDE OF MY COMMUNITY

Choosing the last day of Latinx Heritage Month to highlight the Latine Heritage Month Tour and Latine Heritage Month Bookstagram Challenge as well as some of leaders in out book community who put those initiatives together. Start following them now so you'll have a DIVERSE ARRAY of Latine books for 2027.

But I am not here to lecture you. The reality is that opportunities and exposure for Latine creators who so rarely are compensated for our labor completely dried up this year during the time where it's supposed to be maximized. Hiwever, WE celebrated us regardless.

More and more, we are further pushed to the margins celebrating our own stories and we are feeling it. We are resilient like out ancestors who survived so much, we will survive this as well. We refuse to disappear.

I actually have my one LHM sponsorship coming up today and guess what? It's NOT a publisher. (I'm actually so proud of it and can't wait to share it with you in a bit)

If you want to support me and the work I do, please consider joining my Bindery at a paid level to support the work I do promoting Latinx books through my weekly newsletter and Bien Leidos book club where we read one Latinx book every month.

Try as this system might, we are still here. We are NOT going anywhere.

There is so much more to come,

Carmen

Flipside by Leumas Llewtnac is a chilling post-apocolyptic science fiction told from multiple points of view. If Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a favorite film than Flipside will be a book you'd enjoy. With a surprising twist at the end, Flipside is the perfect spooky read for October.

hiya!

I am going to be sending out an email to each member of the Shadowborne tier later today with the pdf of the zine!

It is a Halloweenie Zine :) I hand drew most of the imagery with colored pencils and then scanned it into my computer to add some canva elements to make it Sparkle.

But it is a Zine full of dicks so I don't know how much it can really sparkle lol. OK so this is a fun new thing I am trying instead of the long form video. I still have a link to a video for you to show you how to fold up the zine.

Let me know what you guys think, I am looking for feedback. Do you love this idea, hate it? I thought it would be fun to send you something you can hold in your hands ya know? Unless you don't have a printer, then I just suck and I am sorry.

Here is the YouTube link so you can watch me fold paper - https://youtu.be/s8ZI7djwHdY

OK I love you guys and can't wait for the next book club meeting!

Jen

This is my super cool private post. Below, you will find more info.

This is the secret info. Oooh! Exciting. You shouldn't be able to see the images below unless you are a member.

Saint's Hotel by M.I. Minaeva will come out in Fall of 2027 and we’ve seen a lot of questions about why it’s taking so long. A lot of shit has to happen before then. We are prepared to go deeper (and deeper…) on each phase as we get to it, but wanted to give you a road map, shine a flashlight down this dark and winding corridor if you will, so you can see what’s in front of you…

Right now, literally as we speak, a developmental editor is working through the manuscript. He’s getting his hands in there and squishing around inside of its guts. He’s thinking about: plot, pacing, structure, character development, what the hell is happening and whether it makes sense.

Also right now, we’ve started talking about cover art. Very fun stuff. We’re trying to distill the vibe of the book (check out our mood board post), floating concepts, and researching possible illustrators and artists.

We're also hyping you up with things like the LPOTL stickers and this post. And asking ourselves, what else can we do to make book publishing seem like a fast-paced, sexy, high-octane, non-stop thrill ride?

Every place that you buy books has a different way of doing business and we have to figure otu how to sell-in to all of them. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, airport shops, and indies all buy on their own schedules, so we pitch our books to sales reps who specialize in each one. We also make a catalog for bookstores and trade shows. There are more than 3,000 indie bookstores in the US along and each one operates completely independently. How do we reach these stores??!?!!

The book will go through several rounds of editing and proofreading. The dev edit. Then the line edit. Then the copyedit, which is more, like, grammar, punctuation, and catching things like "this character is listening to 'Fat Lip' in 1999, but hat song came out in 2001."

Once the cover is done and the manuscript is copyedited, we print ARCs or “galleys” (some cool industry lingo for you, there). They're early versions of the book that aren't for sale. They go to reviewers, booksellers, readers, and influencers (and you). In the months before publication, we want a few thousand people to have read this book already.

We tried to make this short but we’re only up to, like, March here?! And miles to go before we sleep… We will be giving you exclusive peeks at every step of the way so stick around. You’ll probably wish you never asked.

Remember, paid members get a front row seat to the whole process, EARLY copies of all books we publish under our imprint AND all of Last Pod's membership proceeds go to support Reading Is Fundamental, a foundation supporting literacy for children. Sign up today.