The Best Native Books of 2019

read his list

Dana Lone Hill

  Dana Lou Lone Hill  Oyate WačhíŋyAŋpi

(age 47) February 29, 1972 ~ November 15, 2019 (her obituary is on her author page)

An Inspiring Lakota Writer, Activist

her writing for the Lakota Country Times

Buffalo Dreams is now available! Price reduced on both ebook and paperback!

"Buffalo Dreams" ebook by our Blue Indians author Jaga'de is available in the Kindle Store here.  Price :$3.99. PRICE REDUCED!

Jaga'de explains:

Dreams are a great source of healing.  Often they will exaggerate to get your attention.

This book is an attempt to help people realize the importance of dreams in our daily lives.

When I lost my beloved husband of 42 years, grief took on an aspect I did not imagine.  I had grieved more for my dogs than for human beings.  My husband’s walking on left me staggering in unexpected ways, ways in which I could not have prepared myself.  It was as if the world had blown up and me with it.  The pieces are still falling out of the sky.  And yet, I have learned so much in the two years of sorrow.  I have lost, but I have also gained.

Once again a dream gave me strength to go on.

Perhaps you have a question you would like to have answered.  The answers can come at any time, in many ways.  The answer just peeks out at you from a book, a movie, from a conversation, from Nature or from Life itself.  The answers will come. The thing to do is to stay tuned in for three or four days.  People often have dreams that help point the way.  Some dreamed an answer.

Dreams have helped me make decisions, make moves, act on things I wanted to do but kept putting off.  Dreams can be real lifesavers.  With this book, I wish you… Happy Dreaming!

And then there are the Dreamers among us who have dreams, visions and hallucinations thrust upon them by the Universe.  It is these people for whom I have written this book.


The paperback Buffalo Dreams: on the importance of dreams in our daily lives, is available to buy on Amazon. 
ISBN:
ISBN-13: 978-1696272308 
$15.00 Proceeds to benefit St. Joe's School in SD.

It's wonderful! It is truly amazing! Trace, BHB founder

Vine Deloria on Native Americans (1972) - The Best Documentary Ever

Vine Deloria Jr. on Technology’s Toll

COMING: Fabulous NEW Titles #MarkYourCalendars

The brand new book BUFFALO DREAMS (under the imprint BLUE INDIANS COLLECTIVE) by Jaga'de, and new editions of Sleeps with Knives | Am I supposed to be doing this? (with an essay Earth Tribes by Trace Hentz), Called Home: The RoadMap (Vol. 2) anthology are all coming out this fall!

When We Disappeared/One Small Sacrifice: The Grief Memoir will come out in 2020.

John Christian Hopkins will be publishing a collection of his humorous columns for the Westerly Sun newspaper.

Trace is also doing a prose/poetry book for the late Glaciologist Dick Cameron who passed a few months back.

LOTS COMING! Subscribe by EMAIL to this website.

To read a preview of Sleep with Knives:  here

What has happened to publishing?

This blog post by Nicholas C. Rossis in Publishing has a series explaining the history of publishing. Also watch the movie THE WIFE with Glenn Close to get an idea of the male dominated industry.... Trace

Our books on Kobo

We did publish Two Worlds: Lost Children (Second Edition) on KOBO in Canada in 2017.
These are our current stats (July 2019):

• #200 in Nonfiction, History, Americas, North America
• #331 in Nonfiction, History, Canada
• #4093 in Biography & Memoir, Historical

Hentz releases new creative non-fiction (NEW! REVIEW!)

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hentz releases new creative non-fiction

Charles Grolla

Charles Grolla's Ojibwe name is Ogimaagiizhig (Boss of the Sky) and he is of the Adik (Caribou) clan or totem.  He is an enrolled member of the Bois Forte reservation in Minnesota and was raised mainly on the Red Lake reservation in Minnesota.  While growing up in the Bikwaakwaang (West End) area of the Red Lake reservation, Charles became a contending player of Ojibwe style moccasin game before the age of 14.  Charles graduated from Red Lake High School and completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Ojibwe Language at Bemidji State University.  Retiring after 17 years of service from the Red Lake Police Department, first as a police officer then as a conservation officer, he started a new career and is currently a teacher at Cass Lake – Bena High School where he teaches Ojibwe language, culture, and moccasin game.

Trace Hentz

Sleeps With Knives: Has It Hit You Yet + special essay: EBOOK out today https://t.co/rc04hBdDdw via @amazon @StonePony33

— Trace kalala Hentz (@StonePony33) October 5, 2019

LISTEN TO A NEW INTERVIEW

new ebook and paperback

John Christian Hopkins

John Christian Hopkins, a member of the Rhode Island Narragansett Indian Tribe, is a descendant of King Ninigret, patriarch of the tribe’s last hereditary royal family. Hopkins is a career journalist who has worked at newspapers across the U.S. and has been a nationally syndicated columnist for Gannett News Service. He and his wife Sararesa live on her Navajo reservation in Arizona.

John's Blog (click)

Narrate Your Own Audiobook

ACX Audio Submission Requirements

https://www.acx.com/help/acx-audio-submission-requirements/201456300

Update from Trace

a new edition is coming SOON

HER LATEST BOOK: Mental Midgets | Musqonocihte 

Borderline: Invisible #poemenvylopes

This makes too much sense... too much OVER THE TOP marketing and 1 million new books a year - this has obviously tanked our author's book sales.
And you know what? We here at Blue Indians will continue, as we have since 2011... we will NOT stop.
I have a short book out now. And plan more.   Trace

THIS is the most important commentary on publishing I have EVER read.↓

A Writer’s Choice to Be Borderline Invisible

Small presses and editions remind us that that we’re free to stay below the radar in an age of self-promotion.

John Yau

Small Press Success

Graywolf Press  is one of many independent presses that have found their place in the shadow of bigger publishing houses. In the past few years, Graywolf has released some of the most groundbreaking American nonfiction. Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts, which won the 2015 National Books Critics Circle award, complicated notions of sexuality and desire with tender, cutting prose. Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric conveyed a sense of exhaustion of American racial harassment and violence that resonated with many readers.

The Argonauts and Citizen are each less than 160 pages long. They’re built from fragments and vignettes that don’t so much combine genres—personal essay, critical theory, poetry, and photography—as they put them into a blender and shred them. Both play with method and perspective to offer insight into crucial subjects: One explores what it’s like to love a fluidly gendered person, the other grieves the continued killings of black citizens by the police. Rather than depending on preexisting notions of what succeeds, these writers pursued faith in new models, and The Argonauts and Citizen both happened to do quite well among mainstream audiences (the latter sold over 60,000 copies). The Argonauts won a National Book Critics Circle Award, Citizen was a finalist for a National Book Award, and both can be found in major bookstores just about everywhere.

Another notable press subverting traditional publishing standards is Dorothy, which is “dedicated to works of fiction or near fiction or about fiction, mostly by women.” Run by the experimental writer and book designer Danielle Dutton, Dorothy publishes just two books a year, and the books are small, beautiful, and cost only $16.

(click links)

11-11 anniversary | new Mental Midgets | Musqonocihte

11-11 is the anniversary of the very first book we did for John Christian Hopkin's book Twilight of the Gods!

Vine Deloria Jr. on Our Relationship to the Unseen

Introducing Kindle Create

From CREATESPACE to KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING

Createspace is coming to an end (this month)

If you have published paperback titles using Createspace, it is time to think about moving your books to Amazon KDP. (Kindle Direct Publishing)

There have been many problems with Createspace over the years.

READ

 

As you may know, Amazon is merging its two print-on-demand publishing services. CreateSpace is becoming part of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
Originally, KDP was for Kindle eBooks, while CreateSpace was for paperbacks (and videos and even audio).
However, in recent months KDP has added print-on-demand publishing for print books. It has slowly evolved, and now matches CreateSpace in terms of quality, service, and prices (with a few subtle exceptions). Overall, in a few ways, KDP’s print-on-demand is a little above and beyond CreateSpace (it wasn’t originally, but now that it has finished evolving, it is now).

Our authors should have received an email about this. Go sign in to your KDP account asap.

Has this happened to your book?

Indie authors are being targeted by thieves who impersonate them online, then collect royalties on their books. Learn how to detect and stop book counterfeiting.

Long story made short, Amazon may confiscate royalties from infringing copies of your book and pay them to you, but you’ll need to follow their procedures to the letter:

1. You must fill out Amazon’s online copyright infringement complaint form, or send a written claim to Amazon’s legal department.
2. You must file a separate complaint for each Amazon territory (Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.in, etc.)
3. You must explicitly request reassignment of the infringing copy’s royalties.

Amazon rarely volunteers this information, so it pays to be aware of your rights.


MUST READ: Piracy, Plagiarism, and Impersonation - Part 3 of 3 | Alliance of Independent Authors: Self-Publishing Advice Center

Sennah Yee - How Do I Look? (Book Trailer)

Finally in 2018? Diversifying book publishing

9 Publishing Organizations that Promote Diversity Within the Industry

LINK

This blog post is part of Chronicle Books blog's ongoing Diversity in Publishing series, focusing on the need for inclusion, equity, and diverse voices within the book industry. Read more posts here.

In the same way that diverse talent databases have started emerging in recent years, so too have a number of organizations dedicated to helping do the much-needed work of diversifying book publishing. It’s encouraging to see these groups of passionate individuals who are organizing and working for change in our industry, and the exciting array of resources, programs, networks, platforms, and events they’re creating.

CLICK ON LINKS Below↓

Dear Indigenous Writer

Writing in all its forms is a scary act; it makes us vulnerable and exposes our softest parts to a world not known for its gentleness. But there’s magnificent power in that vulnerability, and it’s deserving of acknowledgment. And I’m filled with such deep joy each time another powerful voice joins the Indigenous literary world. I hope you’ll think of these words as an honoring and a hope for the important work you’re about to undertake.

In both Canada and the US the mainstream literary scene tends to hold up one or two Indigenous writers at a time, while leaving the rest to fend for themselves. It’s important to help one another, to uphold one another’s work, to celebrate successes and grieve losses, to engage in this beautiful struggle together.

To be an Indigenous writer is to be part of a long legacy of struggle and survivance, of determination to speak truth into a world that too often insists on Indigenous silence.

READ THE LETTER: Letter to an Emerging Indigenous Writer | Literary Hub

Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee Nation) is Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and English at the University of British Columbia. Widely published in the field of Indigenous literary studies, his critical and creative work engages issues of Indigenous being, belonging, and other-than-human kinship. His newest book, Why Indigenous Literatures Matter, was recently released by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Zines in Indian Country

Monday, March 26, 2018 - 'I'll publish it myself': Native zines

 

In the age when people publish instantly on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and their own blogs, it might be difficult to see where zines--low-tech, photocopied, self-published magazines--have a place. But they're still around. You might find them laying around at your local coffee shop or alternative bookstore. The zine publisher might print one out and mail it to you. Kayla Shaggy's (Diné and Anishinaabe) zine, "Monstrous," is filled with drawings of monsters. She says the format offers "the freedom to do what you want." Self-publishing something that people can hold in their hands is part of the reason for doing it. We'll talk with Native zine makers about why self-publishing a few copies with limited reach is their favorite way to get their creative work out.

 

NEXT MONDAY! Go to Native American Calling on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/native-america-calling