This is the one hundred and tenth installment of West Wind, your regular drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season. It’s the 35th day of Spring, and the feast day of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen. It’s also the date of the founding of the Thomas Family, as Michelle and I were married 22 years ago today. Wow!
At long last, the Hidden Bird has been revealed! As of today, ZMT Books has officially been re-branded as Hidden Bird Media. For the first three years of this artistic endeavor, the name based on both of ours served us well. But as we’ve gone farther down the trail and learned a lot more about what self-publishing really means for us, I realized it was time to frame things a little differently.
I won’t get into the whole “what is a book” debate right now, but the easiest way to explain it is like this. Most authors self-publish a book, release it in ebook form and paperback, and then maybe an audiobook if they’re feeling ambitious. (Or if they run it through one of those new narration apps, bleh!) But, the audio is almost like an accessory to the main text. It’s a different format, but without the book, there would be no audio. I aim to flip that around a bit.
The immersive, sound-and-music enhanced version of the Paper & Feathers audio is still in production and coming out soon. But P&F has already been available to read since 2023, so many readers who listen to the show will experience it again, in a different way. When Counterbalance releases sometime in the next few years, the audio show will be released first, in a serial podcast style. There will be printed books and ebooks available at launch, but the primary product I will be promoting is the show. That’s why I decided to change from a Books company to Media.
And very soon, there will be more Media than just my own. Mary Rose Kreger has already agreed to let Hidden Bird Media host and distribute the audiobook of Avalon Lost (1), and the upcoming Reach Trilogy by O. McCarthy will also be available from a platform that doesn’t rhyme with “laudable.” There might even be a secret third thing in the works, so wait and see.
So, that covers the media part, but what about that bird? Well, there’s a legend from when a great cathedral was being built way back in the day. A wealthy patron stopped by the construction site to see what all of his gold was being used for. He found an artisan carefully carving a bird into a wooden beam. But, even the noble could tell that the beam would be hoisted up to the rafters where no one would ever be able to see the carver’s work. When asked why he was doing this, the artisan answered that while he might not be able to see it, God could see it.
That has become one of the mission statements of our publishing journey. We haven’t “made it big” and been put on a bestseller list, and no one is asking me to give talks at national conventions on how to be a “successful” indie author. Instead, I hear about kids spending an entire road trip reading Octave of Stars, and get to discuss themes with someone over a heavily-flagged copy of Paper & Feathers. Even if only a handful of people ever read or listen to our work, God sees and hears it all, and that is the real reason why this is all happening.
So there you have it! The main website has already been updated with the new branding, and it will take time for the rest of the platform to follow suit. But it will happen. Thank you so much for reading this far, and for being a part of this journey with us. It would be awfully lonely on this trail without you.
Photo by the author
