MSI Press Blog

  MSI Press has added to its collection of affiliated books a self-published book by MSI Press author, Dr. Amir Sabzevary: An Interpretative Introduction to Western Religion s: This book is an antidote to contemporary philosophical, religious-spiritual markets and trappings. The book details the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual subtleties and complexities that exist and are experienced on the quest towards wisdom: the qualities that teachers of wisdom must possess, what is expected from seekers after truth, the teacher-student relationship, the importance of love, the stages of spiritual evolution, and the nature of a spiritual community. This book offers a rare and uncommon glimpse into the inner or esoteric dimensions of the three great Western religious traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Using everyday language and examples, the book offers understandable accounts of some of the core and complex practices and teachings of these great traditions. Those inte

  Recommending an excellent affiliated book for Earth Day: Walks Far Man: In Step with History on the Pacific Crest Trail  by Jim Ostdick. Jim Ostdick is a retired Earth Science teacher and independent author who lives on the ancestral lands of the Amah Mutsun Ohlone near the central California coast. In  Walks Far Man: In Step with History on the Pacific Crest Trail , Ostdick recounts his Pacific Crest Trail hiking experiences in the context of a larger, more vibrant story, thousands of years in the making. The Pacific Crest Trail in its current state is less than a century old. The land that the trail crosses was once home to bands of strong, inventive humans whose norms and values were strikingly dissimilar to the settlers and armies who vanquished them. With that in mind, Ostdick’s intentions are threefold: 1) to identify and honor the indigenous tribes who occupied and traveled the lands traversed by today’s Pacific Crest Trail, 2) to draw appreciation and respect for the cultural

  Book description: The delicate bitterroot flower brings color and warmth to all who see it. By surviving freezing winters, it attests to the great enduring strength of gentleness. Metaphorically, in this book, the bitterroot is a "warm fuzzy" that can be shared with friends and strangers alike. Let the pages of this book bring warmth and color and the strength of gentleness to your world. Learn how to get what you want and need and make others and yourself happy as you do so. Book Review from Louis Slovinsky, founder of People Magazine :' Until I read the manuscript of Betty Lou Leaver's "Bouquets of Bitterroots," I thought Bitterroots was just an odd name pinned to a mountain range in Montana. The conflagration that scorched those mountains a few years ago raised my consciousness about their stunning, irreplaceable beauty, just as Ms. Leaver's pithy book elevates the eponymous flower to a superb metaphor for learning from adversity and cultivating emp

It is Thursday, and we are talking about the highest levels of foreign language proficiency as we do every Thursday.  One of our bestselling books for language learners, How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately , is not necessarily for Level 4 learners, but rather it provides guidance for learners and teachers at all levels of language proficiency. The author was Boris Shekhtman, shown above, the Una Cox Chapman (i.e. most outstanding) teacher at the Foreign Service Institute, where he taught diplomats at all levels of proficiency. Later, he taught foreign correspondents at the New York Times and the LA Times .  Another book, much lesser known, is his book, How to Use Your Russian in Communication Effectively , an MSI Press affiliated book.  For more posts about Boris and his books, click HERE . Read the full review  HERE . For more ideas about teaching at near-native levels (and to share your experience and research), check out the  Journal for Distinguished Language Studies

Our newest affiliated book is When Her Hand Moves by Omar Imady. Ths book is available in paperback, kindle and audio versions. See more posts about Omar and his books HERE .                                     Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter                           Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  Omar Imady, author and poet, has produced a new book, The Celeste Experiment , to be published November 17 by Villa Magna Press. The book is available on pre-order from Amazon. We welcome this new book as an affiliate with MSI Press.  For more posts on Omar Imady, click HERE . For more posts on affiliated books, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .

  It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is--for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic deviates from our usual "conversation" topics of pragmatic and technical advice for authors and would-be authors, as well as those trying to be their own publishers. Instead, we want to bring to you information about a new MSI Press program that has the potential to help authors directly in significant ways: MSI Affiliates.  An MSI affiliate is an author whose book(s) the MSI Press editorial staff has accepted for inclusion in its webstore as a "friend" of the press. The high quality books of affiliates benefit in a number of ways: They are listed in the MSI Press webstore. While MSI

Book description: Posing for a picture at the southern terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, a long-eared jackrabbit hop from Mexico and 2,650-some miles from Canada, your stomach churns and your mind reels. The air is dusty. A morning desert wind feels oddly cold. No amount of preparation is sufficient for the starkness of your decision. In this beginning, something has ended. Something practiced and old and broken-in has faded. In its place enters immediacy and relevance and sharp possibility. Plans and spreadsheets become paper prayer flags fluttering in a past mind, useless tributes to linear pretense. You catch yourself thinking that it feels like the first day of school. But there are no teachers, no classmates, no classrooms, no halls, and no walls. There is only one choice that yields results: to turn and to walk, to follow the well-worn trail North. With each step, you lose a little more of the other-world, the un-PCT. All you have is what you need. All you need is what you hav

  MSI Press has added to its collection of affiliated books, a self-published book edited by Boris Shekhtman, a prolific author of MSI Press books and books published by Cambridge University Press. Contributing authors include Dina Kupchanka (Specialized Language Training Center), Natalia Lord (Foreign Service Institute), and Svetlana Sibrina (Specialized Language Training Center).   To purchase this book on Amazon. click HERE . For more posts and Boris Shekhtman and his books, click HERE . For more posts about Dina Kupchanka, click HERE . For more posts on language learning, click HERE . To see more affiliated books and learn about affiliated status, click HRE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter.

            It is Tuesday. Time to tall turkey. Monday's madness is over, and Wednesday will take us over the hump, so Tuesday it is for some serious discussion with authors. Tuesday talks mean to address authors in waiting and self-published authors who would like to go a more traditional route or who would at least like to take their steps with a publisher by their side. Today's topic  is a response to the question I get from time to time from our authors: "I just got an unbelievably good offer for X in the email; should I take it?" The quick answer is "maybe." Not all unsolicited offers are scams.  How, not all offers are genuine, and some that are genuine might not be good for you and your book.  What you need to do is analyze the offer in light of your own circumstances. You should answer NO when: the offer is a scam (Google it -- or ask your publisher); Science Fiction Writers of America also keeps a list of scams and shares information through its bl

  Book description: It's a tragic story about love, addiction, about a girl growing up in Soviet Union in a poor family and getting herself in bad dangerous situations due to the lack of moral values and lack of family support. Will she be able to overcome addiction, will she continue getting herself in trouble after she moves to the United States? Will she trap herself there again or obtain freedom? Will she be able to stay strong and keep her hunger for life despite her trauma and loss? The author of the novella, just like her heroine, was born and raised in the Soviet Union and emigrated to the United States in the late 1990s. The author is a practicing licensed psychotherapist, for many years she has been working with mentally ill people and with drug and alcohol addiction patients. Therefore, one of her tasks, already as a writer, was to more deeply reveal the problem of addiction and, possibly, influence the prejudice against those who could not cope with life's difficult

  It is with sorrow that MSI announces the death of affiliated author, Jim Ostdick. Jim lived in San Juan Bautista and interacted with MSI Press staff and participated in activities of The Literary Center, a local outreach arm of MSI Press. He was especially close to Carl Leaver, MSI Press typesetter from 2003-2021. They both are missed. HERE is the biographic information published in the Hollister Freelance , the local paper.  For more posts on Jim and his book, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to

Yes, we are entering our 20th year of service to authors and the book industry. For our history, take a look at our entry in Wikitia . Unfortunately, we do not enter our 20th year with everyone who started with us or all of those who joined us along the way. Death has claimed her share--more than her fair share, it seems to us.  And so, we remember the following authors and staff with sadness for their loss and gratitude for their gifts which linger with us still. Alfred Stites (author and nonagenarian from Costa Rica)  Anne LaForge (volunteer podcast interviewer and literary advisor from San Juan Bautista, CA) Boris Shekhtman (author from Maryland and co-founder of the Coalition of Distinguished Language Center, which spawned MSI Press)  Carl Leaver (typesetter and MSI Press co-founder) Ekaterina Filatova , Ph.D. (author, professor at Leningrad/St. Petersburg State University, and founder of the socionics movement in Russia) Evgeniy (Zhenya)Yanovich (illustrator and Russia-based S

  San Juan Books is the hybrid division of MSI Press LLC. It allows first-time writers to become published in a traditional way through the reduction of risk by sharing publication costs. All other publishing features are traditional in nature, and most SJB authors go on to be offered traditional contracts for their subsequent books. SJB publications are available as paperback, hard cover, and e-book versions. SJB authors' books very much hold their own against their contemporaries in the traditional publishing division. Indeed, a number of them have outsold their traditional compatriots. Today, San Juan Books presents author Dr. Frederic Craigie . BIO: Frederic Craigie Jr., Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, consultant, educator, speaker, and writer. His passions and areas of expertise include spirituality in health and health care, healing relationships, clinician well-being, and resiliency and positive mental health. Fred attended Dartmouth College during the tumultuous Vietnam

  I am going to deviate a bit from the normal format for the publisher's conversation because what I have to say is short and simple -- and there is a longer, typical post HERE that describes the affiliate program. This is simply an addendum, providing another option for authors unknown to MSI Press to become affiliates and have their books listed in the MSI Press webstore catalogue with links to the author's own sales source (Amazon, author website, etc.) If your book has received at least 25 5-star reviews, we will consider your book, any genre, for including. The reviews may be cumulative: 10 on Amazon, 10 on Barnes & Noble, 7 on Goodreads, 1 on Readers' Favorite, 1 on Kirkus, etc., as long as they total 25 or more.) To be considered, send a link to the reviews to editor@msipress.com , as well as to a description of your book on Amazon with the LookInside feature. (If there is no look inside feature, we may need to receive an actual copy of the book.) The cost is $