Announcing our first book!

and a new line of newsletter content

We are thrilled to make our first acquisition official! SWALLOWTAIL, by Emily Ross.

A literary mystery thriller with a side of art and mythology. It’s just the kind of combination and complication we’ve been looking for. A book that isn’t entirely one thing, but that combines genres in often surprising ways to tell a compelling story that defies expectations.

SWALLOWTAIL doesn’t sit squarely in one single genre. To call it “crime” would be to leave out the more “literary” ways that Emily plays with mythology and imagery from painting. To call it “literary” would obscure the fact that, at the novel’s heart, there’s a crime. It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that, when it came time to announce our acquisition on Publishers Marketplace (absence of punctuation theirs not ours!), the template asked us for a single genre under which to file the novel. Which to pick? Neither “crime” nor “literary” nor “mystery” would do the novel justice. We have a feeling we’re going to keep having this problem with every book we acquire!

Earlier this month Emily received an award from New England Crime Bake for a short story. She’s also been a finalist for an award from the International Thriller Writers as well as the Massachusetts Cultural Council. We are excited to be publishing her next work.

So, now the process begins, with me (Henriette) rereading the manuscript so that I can present Emily with my marginal notes and comments as well as a detailed editorial letter, which we’ll discuss along the way, until we have the final manuscript. With cover design, interior design, and copyediting proceeding at the same time (project-managed by Anjali), we’ll be on track to publish SWALLOWTAIL in the Fall of 2025.

New, extra content right here in our newsletter

Now that we have our first book selected, with the next two on the way, we’ll be sharing lots of what we are working on to get them out into the world. And so we will launch, in December, a monthly “insider look” right here in our newsletter. We will always offer for free the information we feel every writer—and every reader—should have about the industry, as well as some book reviews, analysis of publishing industry news, and other useful tidbits, just as we’ve been doing. But in December we will begin a paid subscription option with further details regarding the process of producing our specific books: editorial, logistical, promotional, and sales-related decisions and how we arrive at them. (Kickstarter backers who selected reward tiers that included “insider emails,” you’ll start receiving these automatically in December. And those of you already signed up with a paid Substack subscription, you’ll get this content, too. Thank you for supporting us all these months!)

We believe in transparency, information, and accessibility. But we also have some bills to pay! So if you’d like to start contributing via a paid subscription, you’ll get access to additional content that most publishers (as far as we know) don’t readily share. As an example, in our first issue, with Emily’s consent, we’ll be discussing what went into our decision regarding the title SWALLOWTAIL, as the manuscript she sent over had a different title.

Upcoming classes

Our free one-page critique series, running in early December for query letters and first pages, are full! We’ll be adding additional dates for these series in the new year. We’ll also add new dates for the free Publishing Info classes we’ve been running. Thanks to all of you who have attended so far.

It’s been a long month, and we hope everyone is finding some joy and inspiration in writing, in books, in community. Thanks for being here.

Henriette & Anjali