WHAT’S UP?

Good morning readers! I hope all mothers had a great Mother’s Day. Mine was restful because I’m battling allergies. I didn’t feel like going anyplace but to church yesterday morning. I’ve had a steroid shot, so I’m flying off the walls. The only thing good about steroid shots is that I can write 5,000 words in a short amount of time. I have yet to see what I wrote, but there is an increase of words on my page.

What are we working on? We have three things in the works right now. We’re getting ready to release Carolina Mercy by Regina Rudd Merrick and Camp Hope by Sara Foust. These were scheduled for release in July, but we’re moving them up a few weeks. We’re also working on a fantasy/speculative Quest of Fire by Brett Armstrong. Regina and Sara have published with us before, but this is Brett’s first time with us.

What goes into publishing a book? I thought you might want to know the process, so here goes.

The first thing we do when we get a proposal is write the author or agent and tell them we have received the proposal and the date of our selection committee’s meeting. That’s where our staff get together and look over the proposals. The proposals are talked about and we decide if we feel this is a book that will fit in with our company. We look at the writing, the story, and the marketability of the book. We need to see how much editing there will have to be done before it is ready for the market. A lot of things are considered, and we have both of our editors, our cover designer, our financial manager, and myself to help make the decision.

We make our decision and either let the agent or author know if we accept of deny the manuscript. If it is accepted, we will send a contract out immediately, most contracts are made a year in advance. We are usually booked up that far, which is good. We also ask for a full manuscript if we feel we need to read more of the book.

The next is a long wait for the author. We work on the next available book, and if we have several in front of you it may be several months before your book is edited, so be patient. What we want you to do then is to begin a marketing program if you haven’t already started one. We ask you to start a blog, get friends on Facebook, and join some writing groups. This is a time for you to learn. Writing is learning daily.

The first edit will be finished by the content editor and sent to you. You will be asked to correct the changes. Then it goes to our line editor. She will mark punctuation and grammar changes and return it to you. When the line editor receives the corrections from you, she sends it to me. I read it for the last time, and I also ask you to read it aloud. This is one of the most important things you can do as an author. You “hear” your book. It’s amazing what you find that you hadn’t seen before.

After I’ve read it, I send it to the cover designer who has made the cover. She formats the manuscripts and we send it to the print company for printing and distribution. During all this time the finance manager and myself have settled on a price for the book, and he’s set up your account. Each author has their own account where we post your sales. We watch to see how quickly your books goes into the black. That helps us to determine if we want to publish another one of your books. You must make a profit for us to keep publishing your books. That is why marketing is so important.

That’s about it. We all market together. We are a family at Mantle Rock Publishing LLC. We help each other. That’s what makes it so great.