About Us
Alt 19 Creative is a design services company that specializes in book design for indie authors and small publishers. We provide cover design, book formatting, author branding, and marketing graphics. Our speciality is in the romance genre. We are known for our fancy formatting services and custom vector-style illustrated romance covers.
The Alt 19 Creative team includes founder Stephanie Anderson and her sister Melissa Bishop. We enjoy putting the finishing touches on those words you’ve so lovingly created with your blood, sweat, and tears. Stephanie has over a decade of experience in the indie publishing world with over 30 years experience in graphic design. Together, this sister team brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and creativity to our clients to help them create the perfect book design to stand out in a crowded market.
Why choose Alt 19 Creative?
EXPERIENCE.
Stephanie has been in the industry for over 10 years, and as an indie author, there isn’t too much she doesn’t know about self-publishing. She also knows what a risk it is to publish a book and the financial obligation it takes to make it happen. We prefer to keep our prices on the lower side for this reason.
But it’s not just the experience in publishing that matters. It’s also the experience in graphic design. Stephanie is an InDesign, Photoshop, and Illustrator expert. She also teach other designers how to format using InDesign, the leading software when it comes to page layout work. To say it’s a passion of hers is putting it lightly.☺
And lastly, as a writer, Stephanie has walked the path of self-publishing. Prior to releasing her first book, she thought she knew everything there was about self-publishing since she had assisted many authors through the process. It wasn’t until she went through the process herself did she truly feel like an expert.
YOU ARE IMPORTANT.
Our clients mean the world to us. One of our favorite things about our job is being able to put the finishing touches on a writer’s manuscript. It means a lot for our clients to choose us. We’re here for you! And chances are, we know the answer to whatever question you have. It’s very important to us that you are satisfied with the work we do for you. We keep at it until you are happy with the end product.
OUR LONG-TERM COMMITMENT.
Stephanie didn’t just start this business because she had designed her own covers or her own interiors and thought she could do it for others. Her book design experience came before her own books hit the shelves. It disheartens us when we see writers post in groups that their cover designer is no longer in business or they were ghosted by a designer (usually because the designer decided to quit).
But that is not us.
We’re here. For the long haul. And have been in the industry since 2011. We will be here for you today, tomorrow, and yesterday (unless we suddenly and unexpectedly pass away tomorrow—please Lord, let us both live a long life!).
We’re here to help you every step of the way, from cover design to formatting, and everything in between. Let us help you bring your book to life!
To learn more about us, keeping reading our biographies below.
About Stephanie Anderson
Howdee, Y’all!
I’m Stephanie Anderson of Alt 19 Creative. Originally from Atlanta, GA (born and raised!), I now live in the land of sunshine and barely a winter with my husband and two very large dogs just north of Tampa, FL. And yes, sometimes I sport the pink hair.
SIDENOTE: Want to get lots of compliments on your hair? Then go pink. Trust me. When I have pink hair, I get daily compliments. Just ask my husband. It drives him crazy.☺
The year 2011 changed my work life. It’s the year I begin working in the publishing industry. I spent the prior two decades working in marketing and graphic design roles for various companies and myself, creating all sorts of collateral and advertisements such as billboards, newsletters, websites, logos, booklets, brochures, flyers, training manuals, training videos, and on and on.
When I started the new role in 2011 with Jera Publishing, I was instantly hooked to book design and wished I had spent my entire career designing books. I had finally found my design/work home. For 10 years, I worked with small and medium-sized publishers as well as indie authors. I learned the ins and outs of publishing and self-publishing. During this time, I designed thousands of print and eBooks in every genre imaginable. (I can tell you some crazy stories on all the ones I’ve designed—I even designed a book that had certain pages that could only be read with a black light.) I also designed several covers during that time, but interiors, especially non-fiction, were my specialty.
At the beginning of 2020, I had the opportunity to start my own thing. So, I did! And Alt 19 Creative was born. I started expanding my horizons by designing more covers and focusing on my love for creating fancy formatting for print novels. It’s not just covers, print interiors, and eBooks, I also offer branding and marketing graphics for authors and book series.
SIDENOTE: I’m a writer. In 2019, after years and years of writing, I published my first book, a young adult coming-of-age tale under the pen name Victoria Anders. Since then, I’ve published eight books, including two stories in anthologies. I’m currently working on a contemporary adult romance series that I will be releasing under another pen name.
FAVORITE BOOK: Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver
FAVORITE GENRE: YA Romance with a coming-of-age theme
FAVORITE DRINK: Dr Pepper (Diet or Zero)
FAVORITE CANDY: Red hots and lemonheads
FAVORITE FOOD: Mexican
OTHER TIDBITS:
I love flamingos.
I hate ice cream.
I LOVE music (80’s retro and 90’s grunge but I also like new alternative rock). Live, Staind, and X Ambassadors are my favorite bands. My favorite songs of all times are So Alive by Love and Rockets, Not an Addict by K’s Choice, 3AM by Matchbox 20, The Beauty of Gray by Live, Tangled Up in You by Staind, and Unbelievable by EMF.
I play trivia with neighborhood friends on an almost weekly basis.
I have two dogs—both are Great Bernese (a mix between a Bernese Mountain Dog and a Great Pyrennes). Zeus is a 140-lb, half-human, smart guy who likes to sleep in the shower and give huggies (but you can’t hug him without him grumbling). He’s a pleaser and will do anything for a treat. Luna is a 90-lb, 100% dog, feisty yet the sweetest girl. She was named after my most favorite Harry Potter character, Luna Lovegood, and loves to bark at all the people who walk down the sidewalk behind our house. Her best “fraind” is Georgia Jane, a 100% Great Pyrennes who lives down the street.
About Melissa Bishop
Hello there!
I’m Melissa Bishop, part of the team at Alt 19 Creative. Like my sister, Stephanie, I’m a Georgia girl, born and raised. I live halfway between Atlanta and Athens in a community known as Between. Yes, Between. And yes, because it is equidistant between Atlanta and Athens. Just FYI: Go Dawgs!
After teaching for over two decades at the elementary, middle and high school levels, I decided it was time to move on from a profession I loved dearly. I was running some ideas by Stephanie regarding what I wanted to pursue next, when she said, “Why not join Alt 19 Creative?” so I said, “Okay!”
I’ve always loved books, reading them, writing them, and now I get to help create them. My creative personality has enjoyed this challenge. I’ve been able to use so many skills I’ve gained from many different outlets over the years. Back in college I was on the yearbook staff and created many layouts during my time. If you’ve read Stephanie’s About Me, you see she also spent a lot of time on the yearbook staff, as did my daughter, who was Assistant Editor and Editor during her time in high school. Apparently, it’s in our genetic makeup. I was a published scrapbooker from back in the “hay-day” of scrapbooking and taught many classes on layouts, color combinations, and fonts. Back when Adobe was on its 2nd edition of Photoshop Elements I designed and sold stationary and invitations to my teacher friends. Most recently,
I taught Graphic Design to middle and high school students at a private school. The final project for this class was to create a book cover using the principles we’d covered in class for the semester.
I also have a couple of children’s books and romance books in the works. While teaching writing in my early years I often wrote about a character based on my daughter. The character, Annabelle, likes to try new things so she often talked her parents into letting her take art lessons, horseback riding lessons, guitar lessons, gymnastics lessons, any type of lesson she could find, very much like my own daughter who tried it all. Annabelle’s Adventures will be chapter books for children ages 8-11, my favorite ages to teach.
Little did I know all my adventures over the last two plus decades would lead up to this exciting career.