Signing with a small press

This is a guest post by Louise Gornall, about how she signed with the small press Entranced Publishing.

As some of you may know I recently signed with Entranced Publishing. I wanted to write this post and tell you a little bit about my experience with a small press, maybe even pass on some pearls of wisdom. Okay, maybe “passing on pearls of wisdom” is a bit strong, but I figure if you’re anything like six-months-ago-me, you might find what I have to say helpful.

They say that 90% of this writing game is luck and I was lucky enough to have my MS noticed by Entranced during Brenda Drake’s #PitMad event on Twitter. At this point I was clueless about what a small press is, but luckily Danielle Ellison and Jennifer Iacopelli were running an insight-into-small-press series on their blog, which was loaded with need-to-know information.

Senior editor at Entranced, Eden Plantz, had my manuscript for a grand total of four days before she offered me a contract. I had some serious thinking to do. Truth: I didn’t have a publishing plan. Before Eden’s offer and Danielle’s blog series all I had was an idea of the traditional route to publishing.

Anyway, being a Twitter addict I’d come across a lot of stories on how I got my agent/editor and the one constant of all of those stories seemed to be that there’s an instant connection between the writer and the acquiring party. I felt this too, the second I saw Eden tweet about girl boners. 😉 Seriously though, she shared my sense of humour, which was an automatic tick. She’s also a YA writer and has experience in marketing and editing: still ticking boxes. Above all things she loved my story. We’ve even discussed the possibility of a sequel. This was important to me because I’m planning on a writing career and was hoping to build a long-term relationship with my publisher.

As I had no agent it was up to me read through the contract. So many big words. But Eden sent me an email urging me to message her with any questions. At first I felt uncomfortable doing this. I had many, many questions and I knew she was busy. But here’s the thing: Eden was lovely and all, like, “No, really, hit me with your questions anytime. I’m happy to help.” Now she can’t get rid of me. I’m always in her inbox. *insert maniacal laugh here*

After I signed with Entranced, I was introduced to the team and met all the other Entranced authors, who were welcoming and have definitely earned a place on my Christmas card list. After all the meeting and the virtual hugging was over, Eden emailed me with a ton of information about the marketing and editing process. I know that marketing is essential to my books success and despite Entranced only being a small press I was stoked to discover it had a solid marketing plan.

One of the most exciting things for me has been filling out my cover design form. Since before the book was even written I’d had cover design fantasies and Entranced asked me for input! Between you and me, I’ve also cast the movie. 😉

Right now we’re at the content edit stage of book production. Then when we’re done with that, In Stone will go and meet the line editor for one final polish…

I’ve never had any experience with a large press so it wouldn’t be fair to start comparing the two. All I can tell you is that I’m having a great time working with Entranced. I’m loving being so involved with the publishing process and am really excited about the release of my novel.

Louise D. Gornall is a writer at Entranced Publishing. Her YA urban fantasy story, ‘In Stone”, will be released in the Northern Hemisphere fall.