Thomas Bell

Thomas Bell is a co-founder and partner of Chronicle, a brand narrative consulting firm. He co-founded and served as founding program director of the AJC Decatur Book Festival, one of the United States' largest literary events. In this position, he met regularly with all Big Five publishers and many university and indie publishing houses, as well as with book critics, agents, publicists, and writers ranging from internationally bestselling authors to local self-publishers. He has advised and negotiated on behalf of start-up indie publishers, first-time authors, and already successful authors working toward even greater success. He regularly attends and networks at BookExpo, the annual conference of the publishing industry. He has taken private tours of print-on-demand facilities and the nation's largest book distribution facility, and has presented to the full national sales force of Ingram Content Group, the nation's largest book sales and distribution company, at their quarterly sales conference. He was formerly a book critic at alternative weekly Creative Loafing, and the production editor of The Duck & Herring Co.'s Pocket Field Guide, an independent literary magazine.Bell has always been equal parts artist and sci-tech nerd. He started programming computers when he was 13 years old, coding in BASIC on a TRS-80 Color Computer with 4K of RAM and a cassette tape interface for storage. Shortly after, he had his first paying client, an electronics repair shop that learned through the local Radio Shack that this kid could write for them an inventory program. Today, he gives time and attention to his nerd brain by developing websites and mobile apps, for fun, for promotion of his other projects, for friends and families, and for clients.