My Publishing Background
Thanks for visiting today. This is the official website of award winning author, editor, book cover designer and intuitive coach, Melissa Alvarez.
Melissa Alvarez is a bestselling award winning author who has written over forty books and nearly five hundred articles on self-help, spirituality, intuition, positive thought, wellness, mind/body/spirit, the paranormal and other nonfiction topics. As a professional intuitive coach, frequency specialisty, energy worker, spiritual advisor, medium, and animal communicator with over thirty years of experience, Melissa has conducted over 65,000 readings for people all around the world, to help them bring clarity, joy, and balance into their lives. As an intuitive, Melissa teaches others how to connect with their own intuitive nature and how to work with frequency for spiritual growth. She has appeared on numerous radio shows as both a guest and host. Melissa is published by Llewellyn Worldwide, who is “is the country’s oldest and largest independent publisher of books on the New Age, Mind Body Spirit, alternative spirituality, esoteric literature, and the paranormal, celebrating more than a century of publishing books and related products.” Melissa’s Llewellyn books are 365 Ways to Raise Your Frequency, Your Psychic Self, Believe and Receive, Animal Frequency, Llewellyn’s Little Book of Spirit Animals, The Simplicity of Cozy, and Earth Frequency. Melissa’s books have been translated into Romanian, Russian, Chinese, French, Czech and Spanish. She is also published through her company, Adrema Press. She lives in South Florida with her family, dogs, and horses. Visit her online at MelissaA.com for a complete list of her books. Her latest release is Raise Your Frequency Through Number Messages.
Melissa offers book cover design and publishing services at her website BookCovers.Us.
My Publishing Biography
I’m so glad you stopped by my website today. My biography as an intuitive is listed separately from this publishing bio so if you’re looking for a reading from me and want to know more about my intuitive abilities, please check it out.
To tell you a little about myself, I grew up on a farm in Southern Virginia. I have four brothers, three sons, a step son, and had an amazingly, wonderful husband who unfortunately passed on January 21, 2022. My life will never be the same after losing him and I’m taking life one day at a time.
I am of Scotch Irish and English descent and am proud to claim Patrick Henry as one of my ancestors. Passionate writing runs in our family, as you can tell in Patrick’s famous words, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
My parents have always said I have a “vivid imagination”. And now that I was happily married for thirty-one years and have children of my own, my imagination is as vivid as ever. My sons loved the stories that I made up for them when they were very young and several became favorites I had to tell each night.
I penned my first story in eighth grade and titled it True Love At First Sight. This was my first attempt at writing with the desire of seeing it in print. But the only print I ever saw it in was my own handwriting because I hid it away. True Love At First Sight was a romance.
Over the years, I found that I had stories swirling around in my mind that demanded to be told. I’d jot them down on pieces of paper, here and there, never quite sure what I would do with the ideas. After the birth of my first child, I started writing them down in their entirety.
Still, I didn’t take my writing seriously. I opened several businesses with my husband over the years. I handled the website design, office work and all correspondence. But my desire to write was not being fulfilled with contracts and memos.
Then I wrote, designed and formatted a diet/exercise journal for myself. When others started asking me for a copy, I formed New Age Dimensions, self-published the book and sold out of my first print run in three weeks. The publication of The Phoenix’s Guide To Self Renewal led to great personal satisfaction and high sales via Amazon.com (it consistently stayed in the top 1000 until I made it unavailable for sale because I couldn’t keep up with the production because I was manufacturing the book in my home), yet there was this urge within me to write fiction.
And then, unexpectedly, we moved back to Florida and everything changed. Looking out of my living room window at the beach and ocean inspired me. I found myself with an unquenchable urge to put words to paper. So I did. I submitted a romance short story, Briar Mountain, to be considered for publication in The Writer’s Net Anthology of Prose. I decided that if my work made it though the selection process it was a sign for me to write the trilogy tugging at me. Boy, was I surprised when my work was chosen for publication! I sat at my computer and wrote the first novel in a trilogy in two weeks and then spent six months polishing it. That book was Night Visions, which I released under the pen name Ariana Dupré. Please check my Book Shelf for all of my titles.
Many people have asked me why I didn’t release the Night Visions under my own name. I wanted the book to stand on its own, to receive good or bad reviews because of the writing, not because I had previously worked as the Guide to Romance Fiction at About.com, or because I knew a lot of people in the romance industry, or because I owned a publishing company. I didn’t want my jobs, past or present, to affect the reviews in any way (good or bad). I kept Ariana’s identity a secret until enough reviews came in that I knew the book had indeed earned its success on its own. So, I held a contest (which was a lot of fun) to see if anyone could guess Ariana’s identity on eCataromance. After several weeks we finally had a winner who received an autographed copy of the book. Night Visions also won several awards that are listed on the book’s page here.
In March 2004 I expanded New Age Dimensions into a small press. We were to celebrate our second anniversary as a full fledged publishing house in March 2006. But due to Hurricane Wilma, and it’s effect on my husband’s job, I had to revert the company back to a self publishing entity and renamed it Adrema Press several years later. It was a very difficult decision. I’m very proud of the staff we had on board and the authors we contracted and the award winning books that we published. My previous affiliations included being a publishing expert at Moonspinners Ask the Experts, which was a Writer’s Digest Top 100 Website that is no longer in business, and being a spirituality and publishing expert at Book Promotion Newsletter which has also unfortunately suffered the same fate.
Fast forward a few years. I’d been mentoring people to help them understand about their own psychic abilities since I didn’t have anyone to help me understand them. With the urging of a close friend, I submitted the proposal to Llewellyn Worldwide. The didn’t buy the book but they loved a chapter in it and asked if I would write a book along the lines of 36 ways to raise your frequency. I said sure, but why don’t we do 365 ways so they’ll have enough for a whole year? They agreed and 365 Ways to Raise Your Frequency was born. Now, 11 years later, I’ve had seven books published with Llewellyn, three of which I got the rights back to last year and republished with my company Adrema Press.
My current releases are listed on the front page of my website and on the Bookshelf page. You can also find retailer links to all of my books on their individual pages and some of my books are available directly from my Shop.
With the passing of my husband I have had to re-evaluate my career. I made a promise to him that I would continue with the company we’d started named Thorn Ridge, which I’m determined to make a success. It’s an online retailer with a country store appeal. I invite you to check it out. I am also offering editing services and both pre-designed eBook Covers and Custom eBook cover designs to authors on my website at BookCovers.Us again after being on hiatus from those jobs during my husband’s illness.
I have had quite a few people ask for readings. Please visit the readings section to see my availability. If you’ve ever wondered what having a reading is like you’ll be interested in this interview. I’ve just completed a two part interview regarding both writing and psychic abilities with Deb Julienne. You can read Part One Here and then Part Two Here on Deb’s blog. The interview is all about writing, psychic abilities, and part two is all about Deb’s experience having a reading with me.
I hope you enjoy my books! Thank you for visiting my website today. Keep reading!
Smiles,
Melissa Alvarez
The “official” bio:
Melissa Alvarez, is an award winning author, graphic artist, website designer and holds a BA degree from Virginia Tech. She writes nonfiction under her real name and fiction under the pen name Ariana Dupré.
Melissa has always been an entrepreneur and owned successful businesses with her husband. Melissa became involved in the publishing industry in 2000. She formed New Age Dimensions to self-publish her first book, The Phoenix’s Guide To Self-Renewal, which was released in January 2001. It quickly landed in Amazon.com’s Top 1000 where it stayed until it went out of print. At the time, Melissa was manufacturing the 416-page book in her home and eventually couldn’t keep up with the demand. Melissa says, “The learning process that went with the publication of this book was phenomenal. I jumped into the industry in an unconventional way but it was fun and worthwhile.”
Between March of 2004 and February of 2006, Melissa, founder and CEO, operated New Age Dimensions as a small press and published almost 200 titles. During this time Melissa designed the book covers, created the interior print book layouts and ebook files, designed and maintained websites for the company as well as some of the authors. Melissa had the final decision on contracted books. The company won awards for website design and the books published received numerous five star reviews and won many awards including EPPIE’S, the Oscars of ePublishing.
Because of the industry contacts made when Melissa worked as The Guide To Romance Fiction at About.com, she decided to release her first paranormal romantic suspense novel, Night Visions, under the pen name Ariana Dupré. She wanted the book to stand on its own, to receive good or bad reviews because of the writing, not because she knew a lot of people in the romance industry or because she owned the publishing company. Melissa didn’t want her jobs, past or present, to affect the reviews in any way (good or bad). So she kept Ariana’s real identity a secret until enough reviews came in that she knew the book had indeed earned success on its own. Night Visions became a multiple award winning title that is currently published by Adrema Press. Melissa’s other books with Cerridwen Press are a novella titled, Paradise Designs, in the Beneath A Christmas Moon Anthology and Talgorian Prophecy (which was recently named a finalist in the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence contest). Both titles are paranormal romantic suspense. Melissa has two nonfiction books forthcoming from Adrema Press titled Analyze Your Handwriting and Your Color Power and a short story titled Briar Mountain.
In the past, Melissa had several books published by Cerridwen Press, which are now available from Adrema Press. Melissa has also been a regular columnist for Examiner.com as the Paranormal Examiner, a paranormal columnist for Suite Magazine’s Thirteenth Floor, a writing correspondent for The American Kennel Club, a contest judge, a freelance editor, and she is considered a publishing expert and was listed on a Writer’s Digest Top 100 website as such and has appeared on many radio shows and podcasts in the same capacity. As a renowned clairvoyant advisor, with experience in many different areas of metaphysics and as a paranormal romantic suspense author, Melissa wrote an article about the emergence of the psychic fiction genre for Romantic Times BOOKclub Magazine and was known as expert on the subject. She has also been published in The Writer’s Net Anthology of Prose, Paranormal Experiences Volume One, New Age Dimensions Holiday Extravaganza, and is quoted or featured in Book Marketing A-Z by Francine Silverman, How To Operate A Successful Pizza & Sub Restaurant by Shri Henkel, Successful Meetings by Shri Henkel and Book Marketing 101 by Nikki Leigh.
Melissa was the founder of International Paranormal Fiction Month, a member of Romance Writer’s of America including the PASIC chapter. She was also a Publishing Expert at Moonspinners Ask the Experts (Writer’s Digest Top 100 Website), a Spirituality & Publishing Expert at BookPromotionNewsletter.com. She previously ran two paranormal groups at Yahoo.com and was listed in the top ten psychics on bestpsychics.com and on Bob Olsen’s Best Psychic Directory. She was the host of The Reader’s Round Table radio show where she introduced authors to readers and psychic readers to the show’s listeners and co-hosted Celtic Seers Radio Show.
Melissa has been published with Llewellyn Worldwide and is the author of the bestselling books 365 Ways to Raise Your Frequency and Your Psychic Self. She is also the author of Llewellyn’s Little Book of Spirit Animals, Earth Frequency, Animal Frequency and The Simplicity of Cozy, and Believe and Receive.
Melissa’s most recent release, Raise Your Frequency Through Number Messages which was published by Adrema Press, was the number 1 bestselling new release in the New Age Divination with Numerology category on Amazon.com.
Melissa can speak or write about the following topics:
· The publishing industry – how to get started, self publishing, owning a small press, critiquing, manuscript formatting, romance fiction, the submission process, looking at both sides of the industry as a publisher and author, ebooks, psychic fiction, marketing, online promotion and many other topics.
· Metaphysics – clairvoyance, past lives & past life readings, ghosts & hauntings, developing your psychic abilities, spiritual awakenings, spirit guides, empathic abilities, psychometry, telepathy, divination, life paths and lessons, connecting with your higher self, unlocking latent abilities, meditation on the go, crystals, chakras, tarot, pendulums, third eye activation, karma, soul quests, palmistry, elemental spirits, protecting with white light and much more.
Melissa can be reached via email at media @ melissaa.com without the spaces, through her website or Facebook.