Episode Transcript
LA Jacob 00:00:09 Hello and welcome to Small Publishing in a Big Universe. I am your host LA Jacob. Coming up we have part two of our interview with Steven Radecki, the managing editor of Paper Angel Press, coming soon from our sponsors, the Dragon Gem from Water Dragon Publishing. This month is Sinera by author J. Dark. If you enjoyed the Glass Bottle series, you'll enjoy revisiting the magic of that world. With Sinera, Water Dragon Publishing has a new set of audio books available.
LA Jacob 00:00:59 An unlikely hero saves Ann from a date gone horribly wrong, introducing her to a world of technology she never imagined, and for the first time a chance at true happiness. Her fairytale crumbles when a rising vampire plague threatens her at every turn. To have any hope of surviving, Ann must push beyond the adolescent trauma that ruined her life and fight back with the help of an eclectic group of extraordinary individuals dwelling in a lonely factory. Deep in the heart of San Francisco, whose secrets are as shocking and dark as the vampires themselves. Angels in the mist part one of the Z-Tech Chronicles. Now available in audio editions. Listen to the alternate setting of San Francisco where Silicon Valley fights with all the science and technology it has against an ancient evil. Angels in the Mist and Once Upon a Night Walker. A story set in the same alternate world written by Ryan Southwick and Read for You by Dana Ecko, published by Water Dragon Publishing and available in audio editions from Audible, Amazon and Apple iTunes.
LA Jacob 00:02:22 Today's guest is Steven Radecki, the managing editor of Paper Angel Press. In part two of our interview, we discuss what authors should expect from his publishing company and a bit about marketing and promotion. If you would like to participate in our future Ask The Publisher podcasts go to S P B U-podcast.com and click on the ask us link at the top.
Steven Radecki 00:02:59 The author though is responsible for getting this stuff out to readers. For the most part we will assist them in any way we can, but it also kind of depends on the, the event, the location. I can't be in Kansas City for example. The author can be so we can provide them with everything they need to be there and we promote everybody's books on our website, our social media, and if we are at an event where that genre is represented, we have their books there, we talk them up.
LA Jacob 00:03:31 So that was my other question is that you basically do not cut them loose once you publish it. It's no. Okay, here's your book and goodbye.
Steven Radecki 00:03:39 We have a fairly regular posting schedule for social media that varies depending on whether there's a current book out that we're, we're promoting. But when there is no book, we have Meet our Authors Monday and we'll cycle through the authors and then we'll have Free Fiction Fridays for authors who have short work and that we cycle through those. And then the other days of the week, each imprint has a different day. We just go through the catalog each week and promote, you know, a different book. It again, it may vary depending on other events like, it's National Young Wizard Week. So that week we may do the Grimaulkin books even though we had just done them the previous month because it kind of fits in with the theme. If today was Mermaid Day, we would promote Mermaid Steel. As our catalog grows as it has over the, particularly the last two years, a particular's author's book is gonna come up less frequently. But there are other things that we may also do that are out of that cycle to help promote their book again based on some event or some promotion that's going on.
LA Jacob 00:04:42 Well the next question is actually what happens right after you sign an author?
Steven Radecki 00:04:46 One of the things that we'll post on our blog and social media imprint, whichever one it is, welcomes author, whoever it is, so that right out the gate we're starting to build interest in the author and their book even if their book isn't coming out for six to nine months. We're starting to build some momentum from day one on it. Then from that point we set a, a targeted publication date for the author's book. We try to do it no further than six months out from their submission date because part of our goal or our business philosophy for, but lack of a better term is that traditional publishing takes way too long. If you sign with one of the big houses, it'll be a year or two before your book ever sees print as it were. That's a long time to wait. I mean there are business reasons why that happens, but the reality is that's just it. It takes too long. So we try to get a book out within six months of the submission date. Okay. If we can, I mean there's other factors that go into that, but uh, fresh release announcement, we've signed the author and start building that interest and we work with the author on working, as I talked about before, about developing a tagline and summaries for the book. So that we can get those on the website as coming soon and then, then we start discussing with the author cuz some authors come into it with very clear and specific ideas. Ooh, I want the cover to look like X. And then we can get that process started and something's like, wow, I never really thought about it because, and then that's a whole other set of discussion. But we try to get that going as early as possible because so much of the promotion material that we wanna develop is based on the cover designs cuz we wanna use those fonts and those palates and so on and so forth. In general, the cover, at least the front cover gets developed fairly early in the cycle, possibly even earlier than they get for the first round of edits from us depending on how quickly it comes together. And some of them come together very, very quickly and some of them they take a little bit longer once it's been signed and we have some tagline it's listed on the website as coming soon and we'll post the cover soon as it becomes available. But all that information is there so the authors can start pointing to it, Hey look, they've listed my book. They can start doing that. And then we start the process, there's usually at least two editorial rounds so the author will get a set of suggestions and editorial changes from us. They get a chance to go through and review that and we have discussions.
LA Jacob 00:07:05 So I'm assuming you being the editor, you're not like the final end and be all like, you have to make these changes or I will not publish this book.
Steven Radecki 00:07:12 We have been fortunate that we've not run into that. Without going into too much detail, my editorial process is basically twofold. There's, here are the edits. I really, really think you should make. Those tend to be punctuation changes, word choice changes, structural changes. The other ones might be a comment but it might be interesting to add a description of the below here or you may wanna describe their reaction to this or something where it's just like, you may wanna think about this or here might be an alternate way of phrasing what you've said. Part of my goal is I tend to try to take a very light touch in terms of the author's voice. We want to maintain that. We wanna make sure that persists to the final product cuz that's part of what makes each book unique is the author's voice.
LA Jacob 00:07:58 What do you really enjoy about operating the Press?
Steven Radecki 00:08:01 So there's really two parts to that answer. One is, I get to meet a bunch of really cool people because the authors that we have signed are just amazing creative people and getting those different perspectives and ideas is wonderful. I enjoy the heck out of it and it also exposes me to genres that I might not otherwise read. And that's good for me because it brought fire rises a little bit broadly, but it's dealing with the authors and leading to the second part of the answer is helping these authors realize their dream of being a published author. Doing it as we talk about quickly. And part of that is also telling your friends and family for two years. Yes. My book is coming out real soon gets kinda old right People. Yeah. I would think people stop believing you because it's, it's not on Amazon yet. You made it up. That's what of the really cool cool parts about it is allowing these other authors to achieve their dream and be able to add published before the word author in their name.
LA Jacob 00:09:02 What are some of the positive things that are happening with the press and its imprint?
Steven Radecki 00:09:06 I'm gonna have to go with the most positive thing that has happened as we've signed new authors this year, which is kind of exciting cuz we were kind of, for a while there we were kind of looping through the same ones. Not that their work isn't great or anything, it was from a co promotional standpoint, it was also limiting us to just those geographic areas. And this has finally giving us an opportunity to have authors in some other areas where we can start getting some appearances. That's probably the most positive thing that I can say at this point because most of it has been primarily I'm gonna say challenging. The pandemic has not been kind to small business. I for any independent author or small publisher, the bulk of your awareness and the bulk of your sales are gonna happen at events. They're gonna happen at conventions, they're gonna happen at local fairs, they're gonna of local book signing because on Amazon or Barnes and the one, only place, you're just one of tens of thousands of other books that are getting published every month. And it's hard to kind of rise above that, particularly with the money that the big publishers are spending to tout the latest Stephen King or we're going into our second year where there have been no in-person conventions and local festivals or whatever have been canceled and there just has been no opportunity to get there in front of people. We've done pretty well when we've gone to World Con, we've gone to Bay Con and there's always a ripple effect even from those you get not just a promotion but you also get the awareness because even if they don't buy them from you there, they go back or they tell their friends or they buy them on Amazon and we'll still take money. Other thing is that we also would raise awareness around authors at these events cuz they would come see us, they would come to our booths and they would chat us up. So a number of authors are ones that met us first at World Con or Bay Con and say, Hey, they seem like kind of neat cool people and they've got all these books and they seem to know what they're doing. And then they would send us their submissions. The new ones that we received. I have more come in by uh, referral. Some author has told their author friend, oh I just got my book published by Paper Angel Press and they were really neat to work with so you might wanna consider sending it to them. I don't know what our submissions would be like if we were able to do these events again cuz the other thing that we'll do at the events as well, since we're there in person. We'll also say come pitch your story here. Live.
LA Jacob 00:11:24 You are an author as well. What was the name of the book that you published?
Steven Radecki 00:11:28 Building Baby Brother. It's available on Amazon and paperback, hardcover, digital. And we just finally, earlier this year released the audio edition, which was very exciting.That's available on Audible and iTunes.
LA Jacob 00:11:42 If they wanted to contact the Press?
Steven Radecki 00:11:43 The best way to do it is to go to the website and use the Contact us form. Because there's a nice form there where they can check the little boxes, specifically what they're interested in, their submissions or more information or whatever, and that kind of helps guide the conversation.
LA Jacob 00:11:59 What I hope to do in the near future is to have you on for some ask the publisher questions or ask the editor questions that would be submitted by our listeners.
Steven Radecki 00:12:11 That sounds like it could be a lot of fun.
LA Jacob 00:12:13 Thanks again to our guest, Steven Radecki, managing editor of Paper Angel Press.
Carnivals can Hide Dark Secrets. Sean Conway is about to discover why. Carnival Farm by Lisa Jacob is about a young veterinarian, bored with her work, who purchases a traveling carnival’s petting zoo with the intent of nursing the neglected animals back to health. She doesn't realize she has involved herself with the very people who don't want her to succeed. Carnival Farm is available this month from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Smash Words and other online book sellers, or support your local independent bookstores by ordering it through bookshop.org or indiebound.org. For more information, visit our website at paper angel press.com/carnival-farm.
LA Jacob 00:13:39 We plan on publishing new episodes every second Wednesday of the month. Watch for new episodes around that time. Next time, we will have Paul S. Moore in an interview regarding his work Stories in Glass and the Alchemist Daughter. Music is provided by Melody Loops, additional sound effects by NASA. If you want to know more about small publishing in a big universe, visit our website at S P B u-podcast.com. Tweet us at S P B U podcast and like us on Facebook at S P B U dash podcast. Or you can search for small publishing in a big universe. This podcast was recorded and edited by yours truly, LA Jacob. This month's episode was sponsored by Paper Angel Press and its imprints Water Dragon Publishing in Unruly Voices. Thanks for listening and talk to you soon.
Speaker 4 00:14:47 That's why you can use Ether in the skip stream. Communicate across light years. Figure out where you are now. When a minute ago you were a light hour from here, it's like whatever's inside a wormhole without the nasty appetite of a black hole.
