Dreamteam

Dreamteam

Find out more about all of our members here.  

This is a personal recommendation. I use my Dream Team a lot myself but gradually I’m adding in people that friends and friends of friends have recommended.

What happens?

You sign up to a mailing list and every time a request comes in we mail it out to you or the enquirer contacts you directly via my web site. The conversation then carries on between you and the person making the request. You may also have a page set up on my blog and you may update that once a year. 

Interested? You may sign up for more than one category. 

Beta readers sign up here.

Reviewers sign up here.

Editors sign up here.

Illustrators sign up here.

Designers sign up here.

Proof-readers sing up here.   

DO REMEMBER THAT AT ANY TIME YOU’RE APPROACHED AND YOU’RE BUSY IT’S PERFECTLY FINE TO SAY NO.  

And of course, you could be using these people yourself.

Fair Submissions - The Opportunities List

Please remember our waiting list is long. Even with eight editors it takes a while for your work to get to the top of the list.  Currently we’re taking about eight new books a year, in addition to the annual anthology and The Best of CaféLit.  Also we’ll start another when a book recovers financially. So, it may be worth looking at this list in detail whilst you’re waiting.      

I often add several items a day. I look for fairness. Competitions must not be too expensive to enter.  Everything must lead to fair payment, decent publication, fantastic exposure or just be good fun.  

On  Fair Submissions to find what you’re looking for, click on Labels on the left hand side.  You’ll see a lot of dates to start with.  Then click Show More and you’ll see a list of genres and categories.   Or simply type your search term into search field. When I send out the list to those of you who have opted to receive it I’ll feature the latest three posts. 

You can sign up to have the list drop in your in-box every time it is tidied up i.e. every three to four weeks.  Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/doFkD . “Tidied up “means removing the out of date entries i.e. when it is past the call for submission date. I don’t have the time to actually monitor whether the web sites mentioned are active or whether a publisher has gone out of business.  So, if you come across anything like that, do let me know.    

  

The Magnet Book and Books, Books, Books

 

The steady stream of new sign-ups continues for the Books, Books, Books, mailing list that goes out every Friday. The magnet book is on the home page of all of the imprints.  It’s the first thing that people see when they look us up.

The magnet book showcases our work and also links to several of our publications. Importantly it invites people on to the mailing list.

People who join the mailing list are given a choice of what they’ll receive.  Everybody gets notification of all new books but they only get notifications of the offers on the sort of books they like. If you sign up for the list, you’ll get an email that you can easily forward on to other people. Sign up here.        

 If you’d like to use the magnet book to attract more people to our mailing list see what we’ve done here:

http://www.bridgehousepublishing.co.uk/index.php/call-for-new-submissions/2-uncategorised/24-what-we-re-looking-for

https://cafelitcreativecafe.blogspot.com (See top right-hand corner)

Please feel free to create your own call to action from this. The link for the letter sign-up and which then takes your contacts to the download is: http://eepurl.com/gbpdVz

Submissions

Submissions are now all handled by Duosuma. They are still free though we have added a tip jar; each submission you make costs us a few pence.  If every now and then you could shout us the price of a cup of coffee that would be nice. It is a nice clean and tidy way of keeping track of submissions.

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See our call for submission here:

CafeLit

Single author collections

Books for Children

Fast Track

Flash Fiction Collections

Feisty Women Fiction and Non-Fiction   

Writing Teacher – note for this you can submit prompts and work for critique. 

Young Adult books

 

Links in full:

https://cafelit.co.uk/index.php/submission-guidelines-2 

https://bridgehousepublishing.co.uk/index.php/single-author-collections 

http://www.chapeltownpublishing.uk/p/submisisons-books-for-children.html 

http://www.chapeltownpublishing.uk/p/submissions.html 

http://www.chapeltownpublishing.uk/p/submission-feisty-women.html 

https://www.trtpublishing.co.uk/index.php/submission-guidelines 

https://duotrope.com/duosuma/submit/form.aspx?id=O5TCxfX-6CXux-a0E6ElR-g7gG4x4c7  (Fast track – see below)

https://creative-writingteacher.blogspot.com/ 

 

Fast track

If you have a collection of short stories, creative non-fiction, flash and drabbles over 30,000 words or a collection of flash and drabbles over 10,000 words, all of which we have already published before in one of our anthologies,  or on CafeLit,  and indeed in a mixture of these places, we can fast-track your publication.

You must present us with the edited version of the stories in the order in which you would like us to publish them. You will need to take your CafeLit stories off the site as we have already edited them before posting. Please present as a Word document in a standard font.  Times New Roman 12 is a favoured one. 

Add a bio at the end, and links to up to three of your other publications. 

Please create a blurb: this should consist of a dramatic summary statement to open, a paragraph that will whet the reader’s appetite for what is to come, and a final paragraph that mentions the title of the book (if you have it yet) and you with one truthful but inspiring adjective.        

Also provide a concept for the cover in one sentence.

Please contain all of this in one document and proof-read it all once more.

Next month I’ll be introducing another fast-track method.    

Find the private link here.

I Knew it in the Bath by Linda Flynn

 

How we came to publish this one

We have published Linda quite a lot. We do like working with authors whose short stories we have published. We know them already. We have a relationship. They understand how we work. Linda is very loyal to our imprints and a great supporter of our events. She is also one of our editors.    

The title

This is the title of one of the stories within the collection. Actors often say about lines that they fluff “I knew it in the bath.” In this particular story a woman gains insight about what is happening in other aspects of her life whilst she is in the bath. All of the stories in this volume are a little like this. They are reflecting on something that has happened and are looking for insights.     

Some notes about the process

As ever, this collection went through our three stages of editing and three proof reads.

The cover

The cover is intriguing: a silhouette of a bath.   

Some notes about style

Some stories are shorter, some longer. They are the type that make you think – and go on thinking even after you have put the book down! As one reviewer says: “Linda Flynn has such a way with words. The stories are imaginative and enthralling, and you will find yourself wanting to delve into one story after another. If you are looking for an eclectic mix of stories to delight you, this is it.” In many of the stories Linda has a very literary and strong voice.   

Who we think the reader is

Certainly these stories are for readers who like to be intrigued. The stories are very mixed so there should be something there for everyone.        

What else

We hope Linda will carry on writing for us. We look forward to her next collection.

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to Amazon. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF or Kindle file.         

 

Some reminders about our distribution patterns

One of our authors raised a couple of questions about this the other day so I thought I’d do a little recap here.

All of our Bridge House, Red Telephone books and some of our Chapeltown books are distributed via Ingrams whose print on demand service, Lightning Source, we also use. The fact that we are hooked to good distributors and the books have an ISBN means that any book shop can acquire them and they also appear in online catalogues. So, you’ll see your book in Waterstone’s online, Tesco online, Barnes and Noble etc. Waterstones adds an extra gatekeeper; they just won’t handle certain books. Fortunately we are approved publishers and they will handle our books.  Some branches will host events for local authors. It depends very much on the branch though and how supportive they are. For example, the Deansgate branch in Manchester is. Bury, my home town, isn’t!

Another author reported recently that a library would not take her book as it was self-published. Here they are confusing print-on-demand with self-publishing; our books go through three stages of editing and three post camera-ready proof reads They have professional text and cover design. Plus we have a marketing strategy that we keep refining.

Some books we publish via Amazon KDP. These are all the CafeLit serials and the later Best of books.  Since Brexit exporting to any country has become very difficult.  There are fees to pay and forms to fill out. Brexit has affected not just exports to the EU but to many other countries including the US. Our trade agreement with many countries was as an EU member. Amazon KDP gets round this nicely as the books are always printed and shipped locally.   

There are some other advantages and disadvantages of the two systems:

Ingrams is more expensive in two ways. We have to pay set up costs – currently about £86.00 including a proof copy. Then we have to pay £8.50 a year for distribution. The latter is extremely good value for money – it enables worldwide distribution which would otherwise cost us hours of work and much higher fees.  However, some of the backlist isn’t covering that cost and soon we’ll go through the process of flipping the backlist to Amazon KDP. We can still supply discounted author copies. There are no set up or distribution fees with KDP and we can get a proof copy at cost price.  

Ingrams offer more choice in sizes and covering though Amazon KDP are gradually increasing their range. There is a perception that Ingrams offers better quality but there is also a rumour that in fact Amazon use Lightning Source for their printing.

Ingrams’ books can be ordered by any bookshop.  Amazon KDP cannot except in the US. Amazon KDP is offering enhanced distribution but it is much more expensive than Ingrams.

Another author a while back who was thinking of self-publishing asked whether it was better to go exclusively with Amazon for e-books or to go wider. The arguments for and against each system are pretty even. We find it simpler to operate just with Amazon.

Angels and Devils by William Wilson

How we came to publish this one

We have William before. We do like working with authors whose short stories we have published. We know them already. We have a relationship. They understand how we work.   

The title

This is a very apt title. The protagonist in each story appears to be either a devil or an angel.  

Some notes about the process

As ever, this collection went through our three stages of editing and three proof reads. One of our freelance editors worked on this.  

The cover

The cover was provided by the author’s son-in-law, Dany. We were delighted that it worked perfectly on all levels: technical, artistic and commercial. It’s a rather nice cover.     

Some notes about style

Some stories are shorter, some longer. They are the type that make you think – and go on thinking even after you have put the book down! A quote from reviewer Rosemary Johnson: “William Wilson has an understated style which never gets in the way of story-telling and he is a master at building up tension, layer by layer.”   

Who we think the reader is

Certainly these stories are for readers who like to be intrigued. There is some darker humour in some of them. Wilson includes some sharp observations on human nature.        

What else

William is doing a great job on selling these books.

Review copies

It’s always great if you can buy the book and give us a review. Just click on the link to be taken to Amazon. If you would like to review and you are strapped for cash, just get in touch for a free PDF or mobi-file.