From Dennis Lowery

How often one sees people looking far and wide for what they are holding in their hands… 

It’s amazing how the journey continues and where it takes you when you start with something as simple as putting the words inside you down on paper. And that is exactly how I started.

Because of my extensive business career (a great deal of it with starting and buying my own businesses) naturally I at first turned to writing business books. With success at that, as word got around about me, others asked for my help with their books and that led to me to starting a publishing company and working with all kinds of people and types of books. Including fiction. I still write non-fiction and help people with their non-fiction books or memoirs and stories about their life but I now am equally adept at fiction and will work at honing that craft.

One of my fiction collaborations is doing well and is going to be a five book series. There is interest from studio executives in making a movie(s) based on the first book and the series. My colleague and I also have plans for other story lines once we work through this series and have set up a new website for our work together.

Check it out: Novelists | Dennis M. Lowery & Erik Daniel Shein.

A comment/review of Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction posted at Books-A-Million:

“Incredible tale of adventure!”

“Honestly the book is a delight from cover to cover! What an amazing story this one was. The originality was amazing and unlike any story I’ve ever read. The authors did an amazing job of bringing you right into this story. I felt like I knew Sarah and her family from the very beginning and I loved the adventure that I was taken on while reading this book.

It’s a young adult book, but it’s more than that! Wonderful story for even the younger reader just as well as the older ones.”

Alexis likes Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction and talks about that in her Amazon review:

“I went and saw ‘The Hunger Games’ last night at the midnight release like millions did, and loved it. On the way home a friend and I were talking about recent books we’ve read that should be movies also, and with this book fresh in my mind I mentioned it to her.”

Read the complete review

From Dennis Lowery

This is very interesting… especially since the two series we’re working on, ‘Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction‘ and ‘Mirabella and the Pearl of Chulothe‘ are exactly what they are looking for:

“Every single studio wants to capitalize on a young-adult franchise,” said Josie Freedman, co-head of the book-to-films department at talent agency International Creative Management. “It’s what’s selling on the publishing side and on the film side.”

In a business plagued by unpredictability but desperate to find the shortest route to a new brand-name franchise, young-adult novels have become the golden ticket. They often come with a built-in fan base that can help create the early buzz that transforms a movie opening into an event. The best of the books feature universally relatable themes of alienation, love and heroism, and cinematic story lines that translate easily to the big screen.

Read the complete article

From Dennis Lowery

Following is an excerpt from a review just received on Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction (with a link to the full review at Amazon). As a publisher and writer it is the type that you shoot for. Where the reader has been touched positively in some way and what you wrote or published has made an impact.

I’m very proud to be the publisher and co-author of this book.

Here’s the excerpt (from Adam‘s review):

There are so many aspects of it to comment on, but the main way I can prove this book’s worth to you is with this – My daughter wants us to read through it over again although we just finished it! There are very few books she has wanted us to read again, heck.. most of the books we have read her from the kindle are so short or generic she can’t remember them completely. Not here. The story of eleven year old Sara and her quest to not only save endangered animals, but restore life to animals man have hunted to extinction is very remember-able.

Read the full review

From Dennis Lowery

Since Erik Daniel Shein and I have two fiction series in work that touch on things that are hidden and ancient secrets… I thought this a very cool article.

The Monster of Glamis

“If you could even guess the nature of this castle’s secret,” said Claude Bowes-Lyon, 13th Earl of Strathmore, “you would get down on your knees and thank God it was not yours.”

Read the full article

My friend and colleague, Erik, wrote the story and was one of the producers for this very entertaining animated movie. I’m very proud of Erik and what he has accomplished.

From Dennis Lowery

We spotted something in a review of the fantastically successful novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Read what the reviewer says in the middle of his review of that book. He compares The Hunger Games to our book Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Gripping Story, January 6, 2012

By Reggie Brown (Seattle, WA USA) – See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hunger Games (Paperback)

This is a very unique story line that grips you from page one and doesn’t let go until the end. Very futuristic as it takes place in what used to be North America. This is very well written and gets very intense at times with the vivid descriptions the author uses. If you enjoyed this book you will love Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction. This is a fictional book as well but what I really liked about it is, there are a lot of principles in the book that can and should be implemented in today’s world. Very exciting family adventure book that I highly recommend.

We’re very pleased that Serpentauria is starting to get noticed and found it very interesting to be compared favorably to The Hunger Games. Why? Because from a business standpoint one of our objectives has been to create stories with compelling messages about specific causes and social concerns that also are commercially successful. The success of The Hunger Games is something we used as an attainable goal to shoot for. Here’s some information on the commercial success of that brand. (Source: Wikipedia)

The Hunger Games Sales

After writing the novel, Collins signed a six-figure deal for three books with Scholastic in 2006.^[5] The first book originally had a 50,000 first printing, which was then bumped up twice to 200,000 copies.^[5] As of February 11, 2010, The Hunger Games has sold 800,000 copies^[15] and 26 foreign editions.^[16] Rights to the novel have been sold in 38 territories,^[15] and there are over 2.9 million copies in print.^[17] The book is a USA Today^[18] and The New York Times Best Seller.^[19] It was on The New York Times list for over 100 consecutive weeks as of September 2010.^[20]

The Hunger Games trilogy has sold exceptionally well in ebook format. Suzanne Collins is the first children’s or young adult author to sell over one million Kindle ebooks, making her the sixth author to join the “Kindle Million Club,” which recognizes authors who have sold over 1 million paid units in the Amazon Kindle store.^[21]

The 2011 numbers are obviously higher than the above and they will go higher in 2012.

How the above data on book sales for The Hunger Games is relevant: We feel we have the potential to do equally well. We know the power of the messages within the stories we’ll write and publish for our Serpentauria and Mirabella series will strike a chord with readers.

The reviews and comments we’re receiving are proving that.

The following is an excerpt from the Executive Summary we prepared to clearly define our focus and specifically brand development of our Serpentauria series (beginning with Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction) and our Mirabella series (beginning with Mirabella and the Pearl of Chulothe). Serpentauria contains a strong message supporting the need to save and protect animals, and that we need to do more to save and protect our planet. Mirabella contains a compelling message that despite differences in race, ethnicity or creed—we are all humans and are more alike than we are different. Both series resonate with a theme of faith and belief in inner strength, integrity and purpose and a determination to discover something better within ourselves and others in order to manifest positive changes for our society and our world.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

Important Note: The following centers on the reward/potential for an organization based on its film version of a popular series of books. This is analogous to what we are doing with development of our intellectual property (our books) and developmental pipeline. There is a formula here (and as learned from the success of the Harry Potter books, movie and merchandising) we are pulling best practices from for our own business efforts.

(Excerpted from this article: http://seekingalpha.com/article/289012-new-movie-franchise-has-the-potential-to-transform-lions-gate-films)

The company has a huge possibility in its Hunger Games franchise. The movies will be based on the best-selling book series by Suzanne Collins… The idea actually came to the author while channel surfing between reality television and footage from the Iraq War. The book series consists of three books: Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. The distribution rights worldwide for these movies are with Lions Gate Films.

The first movie will be released by the company in March of 2012. The other two books will be turned into movies as well and currently rest with Lions Gate Films unless someone of course buys out Lions Gate due to the success of the first movie. The movie has a current budget of $75 million and is shooting now. The movie stars Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth, Josh Hutcherson, Donald Sutherland, Woody Harrelson, and Lenny Kravitz. For a look at how this movie could do at the box office I am using the following for comparison. ($ in millions):

For this example I used Twilight due to the fact it is based on a book and centers around a love triangle much as Hunger Games does. Death Race is an example of killing and being the last person standing to win something. Harry Potter was based on a best-selling book and part of a series as well. I am Legend is the top grossing movie based in an apocalyptic world. Saw was the first movie in the successful series from Lions Gate. What does looking at the success of these movies say for the future results of Hunger Games? Here are my predictions ($ in millions):

Our two series brands have the same franchise potential and each are slated to have five books in each series.

Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction has recently been optioned by Enriching Pictures to become a motion picture.

We’ll keep you posted as interest continues to grow and we move steadily forward.