You mean, when I'm not reading manuscripts submitted for publication? :-)
The partners of Artemesia Publishing have a wide range of interests, from non-fiction (history, fashion, science & nature, and religion) to fiction (mystery, fantasy, sci-fi, historical fiction, thrillers, and classics). We all have a great love of reading, which is one of the reasons we wanted to pursue publishing in the first place.

It's hard to say as each book may use a different technique depending on the audience. Print advertising is hard to gauge for effectiveness, but it helps to get the word out. E-mail blasts are better since we can usually tell from click-thru rates how effective the campaign was. Review and awards have also been good to drive interest and traffic for our books. But the best method has to be word-of-mouth. Getting people to talk about our books, leave reviews and comments about them, and to tell others to read them.

Smashwords has allowed us, a small (some would say micro) independent press, to reach out to a world-wide audience. Being able to use the affiliate program to have our titles available for download on iBooks or Barnes & Noble has been great to expose our books to so many more readers.

Artemesia Publishing has always taken a very collaborative approach to cover design for all of our titles. Unlike some publishers, we work closely with our authors to design the cover for their book that will have the most impact to a reader. In fact, most of our authors are directly involved in the design process, either providing the images and text for the cover, to working closely with artists on cover illustrations. We feel that the cover is just as (maybe even more) important as the text within the book, and if an author is not happy with the cover, then they will be reluctant to push the book. We want our authors to love the whole book, and feel that this collaborative approach is critical in making that happen.