Tag Archives: Sapere Books

A PUBLISHER’S YEAR: JANUARY – HIRING, GENRES, AMAZON

Posted on by

It is an exciting start to the year for Sapere Books. We have decided to hire our first full-time staff member. Up until now Sapere Books had been solely run by its three co-founders – myself as Editorial Director, Caoimhe O’Brien as Marketing Director and Richard Simpson as Operations Director. We were also using freelancers last year to help with cover design and proofreading, but we have decided we are at a stage where we need a full-time extra pair of hands as well! So, in a couple of months I’ll have a new Editorial Assistant to introduce to everybody. It is our first time hiring so we are currently brainstorming what tests to set candidates and exactly what we want to ask them at the interview stage. More news on that in a few weeks!

We have also put a call out for ‘nautical fiction’, as that is a genre which is underrepresented in the market and which we know readers love, and we’ll be looking for other niche genres to sign up throughout the year. We are having a lot of success with our first ‘timeslip’ novel – The Catherine Howard Conspiracy by Alexandra Walsh, which alternates between the Tudor court and the modern day, so that may be an area we’ll expand into more in the coming months. Other than that, my inbox is full to bursting with submissions, which is fantastic, but I always find it slightly heartbreaking when I have to turn authors down. We are getting such a fantastic quality of submissions coming through that I am turning down lots of novels which are certainly good enough to be published, but we can’t say yes to all of them because we don’t want to flood our list, and end up not being able to give our books the attention they deserve.

The publication schedule for this month focussed largely on historical fiction. At the start of the year I published the fourth book in Elizabeth Bailey’s brilliant Regency mystery series and M J Logue’s first romantic thriller featuring Major Thankful Russell and his wife Thomazine, set during the Restoration. They were followed by a Medieval novel; the first part of a saga trilogy set at the time of the American Civil War; a crime novel featuring Charles Dickens as the investigator; and the final book in the eight-part Victorian mystery series we launched last year, featuring a husband and wife detective partnership. Next month will be more crime and thriller focussed – with a bit of romance thrown in in time for Valentine’s Day!

We have just had a catch up meeting at Amazon HQ to let them know what we will be publishing this year. The Amazon team have given us lots of ‘Kindle Daily Deal’ and ‘Kindle Monthly Deal’ slots over the past few months in the UK, US, Australia, Canada and even India, which can really give books a boost, so we are keen to keep the team over there up-to-date with our plans and the books we are publishing. I am also sorting out the diary for London Book Fair, which promises to be a crazily intense three days as always, but a brilliant time to catch up with literary agents, meet with authors – and indulge in a drink or two!

Finally, I have some exciting news to share to do with the Romantic Novelists’ Association but I have to wait until the official press release goes out next month so you’ll have to wait until then to hear more!

Amy Durant

 

WRITING IN THE NEW

Posted on by

Jane Cable sets out her plans for Frost for 2019…

Much as I’ve loved hosting Business of Books over the last couple of years, it’s definitely time for a change. Two changes in fact, but more of the second one later.

Readers with very good memories may recall that in the autumn I went on a mini retreat with four writer friends. It was a comment from Kitty that started it – just as we were leaving – she said we’d become sister scribes. So I began to ponder what that could mean.

The world over women are particularly good at giving other women support. We excel at cooperation, collaboration, sharing the champagne and handing out the tissues (or the gin). We celebrate, we commiserate, we coax, we cajole – in short, we are there for each other.

So this year I’m sharing my Frost columns with my Sister Scribes. Over the next few weeks everyone will introduce themselves, and in the coming months we will all introduce other sisters from the world of words; women whose contributions to our writing lives are important to us. Women who want to share their passion for writing for, by, and about women.

So, the Sister Scribes are:
Cassandra Grafton has her roots in Austen-inspired fiction and is a Jane Austen Literacy Foundation ambassador. Published by Canelo from this year.
Jane Cable is a long term contributor to Frost. Indie author published by Sapere from this year.
Kirsten Hesketh’s first novel landed her an agent. Hopefully a deal will follow soon.
Kitty Wilson walked straight out of the RNA New Writers’ Scheme into multiple offers. Writes hilarious romcoms for Canelo.
Susanna Bavin writes elegant, well-researched sagas. Published by Allison & Busby.

We met because we are all members of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, but that doesn’t mean the columns will all be about romance as our network of contacts spreads far and wide. Within the genre we cover a broad church, from sagas to romcoms and a great deal in between. There will be plenty of interest for readers and writers alike, with our first guests including my own long time buddy Carol Thomas on marketing collaboration and Cassandra’s co-author Ada Bright on what it’s really like writing together.

So that’s the first change. The second is an additional column on the last Wednesday of every month to replace the popular Take Four Writers. I will miss Angela, Claire, Jackie and Lucy but it’s time to offer a different perspective and I’m delighted that Sapere Books has offered to provide it.

Every month one of the Sapere team will give an insight into their publishing year. Editorial Director Amy Durant is as delighted about it as I am: “I am very excited to be offered this chance to give readers and writers a unique perspective into what life is like at Sapere Books. We are still a very new publisher and we have lots of exciting projects and developments launching this year – including publishing two of Jane’s books – so there will be plenty of news to share. As a small team we have the flexibility to change strategies at the drop of a hat, if something interesting pops up, so even I don’t know yet what I’ll be writing about in six months’ time, but I hope you will enjoy reading about Sapere Books’ journey in our second year of trading.”

So what will I be doing with all this extra time? I’m hoping I’ll be able to review more books for Frost and even branch out into travel and history related articles. Plus, as Amy has reminded me, I have two books out this year…

 

BUSINESS OF BOOKS: DEAL FEVER

Posted on by

It’s always a great moment in an author’s life when that email arrives. You know, the one which says something along the lines of ‘we’d like to publish your book’.

Cue general celebration – but even so, for me it was a case of once bitten twice shy. A little like when your first boyfriend turns out to pick his nose and snog anything in a skirt. You wonder if you’ll ever trust anyone again but after a little time to reflect, you realise that you have to.

I was lucky because for me that wonderful email came from Amy Durant, Editorial Director of Sapere Books – and I’d worked with her before. Last year she co-founded Sapere with Marketing Director Caoimhe O’Brien and Operations Director Richard Simpson and has since taken on a carefully selected stable of authors. I am still rather pinching myself that I’m one of them.

But being me, I proceeded very cautiously. I went over the contract with a fine tooth comb, making sure I understood and was happy with every clause before I committed. I checked out how their authors’ books were doing on Amazon and was pleasantly surprised. I even openly flirted with another publisher. In fact, I must have driven them to distraction.

But now I am very proud to say that I have a two book deal with Sapere. The first will be a re-issue of Another You, which I withdrew when its previous publisher went into voluntary liquidation, and the second is also a romantic novel looking back to World War Two. Both will be published in 2019.

Last Friday I was able to announce the deal to the world. It was such a special day with so much support from other writers – and from Sapere – in my inbox and across social media. The warmth of the writing world is a quite extraordinary thing and I’ve waited quite a long time to have some good news to share.

But now the hard work starts, and following hot on the heels of all the excitement was an email from Amy which highlighted our rather different expectations for the second book. Cue panic – and frantic messages back and forth to my go-to writing buddy, Kitty Wilson. Was my trust misplaced? Was the whole thing about to fall down around my eyes before it started?

Then common sense prevailed and with some trepidation I replied to Amy offering her an early draft. I hate doing this as I’ve been caught out before, but needless to say her reply put my mind at rest. It will be alright. The author-editor relationship is an important one and I have such respect for Amy I know how lucky I am to have her.

But that aside, one of the most exciting things about signing for Sapere is the feeling I’m in at the start of something new – something which could be quite extraordinary. My gut feel is that they won’t just remain one of the smaller digital publishers and that they’re really going places. And I am absolutely delighted to be travelling with them.