Monday, November 21, 2016

6 Things This Small Press is Thankful For

As we slow things down for Thanksgiving week I want to express my appreciation for some of the people that keep our business moving forward and growing. This is what we at Intrigue Publishing are truly thankful for.

Our talented authors: Let’s face it, nothing happens until someone writes a great book. We read a lot of manuscripts and we never publish a book we just like or think is good. We have to be excited about that story, those characters and the prose style that brings it all together. Not every book we’ve published has become a big seller, but that hasn’t stopped us from loving every one. We have been privileged to read so many great books created by so many hugely talented writers.

A spectacular editor: Almost every book we’ve published has been touched by Melanie Rigney, a fine writer herself who brings a lot more than a finely honed sense of what makes a good and commercial novel. Melanie has a way of making a writer understand that she loves their book almost as much as they do, even as she explains in clear plain language how to make that good book into a great one. Several authors have thanked us for having Melanie help them refine both their book and their ability to write.

An amazing proofreader: commas go inside the quotation marks, a character’s hair should stay the same color throughout the book, and the Marine Corps emblem has a fouled anchor, not a fowled anchor (yep, that one was me.) Cynthia Lauth has one of the sharpest eyes in the business and she has saved us from uncounted moments of embarrassment. If you see a mistake in one of our books it is sure because for some reason we chose to ignore her input.

Phenomenal cover artists: No matter how great a book is, no one is going to pick it up to look inside unless the cover grabs them. Like any publisher we’ve made the occasional false start but in the end we’ve ended up with some incredibly good book covers – the kind other authors compliment us on. In particular Paul at Iconix has helped to create our thriller brand (check the new covers of the Stark & Obrien series) and Ryan Anderson (Look at the replacement cover of our new romance title THE INHERITANCE) knows how to make readers want to check a story out. Both these talents are able to create commercial work that doesn’t look like everyone else’s. We are so grateful to have found them.

A fabulous distributor:  It took us three years to establish ourselves well enough to be accepted by a national book distributor and how lucky we are that we found Small Press United (SPU) This  subsidiary of the Independent Publishers Group (IPG) does more than push our books into bookstores across the continent. We have learned so much from their connections with the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), the publishing industry's leading educational organization. And their sales force has offered valuable feedback about how titles, cover art and other factors impact their ability to place our books in stores. They are in large part the reason three of our titles are on IPG's bestseller lists this week. Like the people listed above, SPU is a valued partner that helps us move from success to success.
 
READERS: Despite the horror stories we all read at the turn of the century, people do still read books! And we are very thankful for every person who has ever purchased one of our novels. We are even MORE thankful for all those who have emailed or tweeted feedback to us, and those who have taken the time to post a review on Amazon or Goodreads. YOU are the people we do it all for, and if we give you a couple of hours of joy, of thrills, of intrigue, then we can feel that we did your job! So THANK YOU for reading. You are also our partners in this grand enterprise and we are eternally thankful for all the people we are connected to through the act of publishing what we hope are some of the most enjoyable novels you’ve ever read.