publisher – Cynthia D. Griffin

Indie Author, publisher, publishing, small press, writing

An Interview with Small Press Wisteria Publishing

Posted on January 23, 2020 by Cynthia D. Griffin

I was lurking around Twitter one day in December, when I ran across a tweet that caught my eye. I think it was the avatar more than anything. A brilliant yellow background that grabbed my attention. I decided to take a closer look, and found a really cool freshly started small press.

What really drew me to this small press was the how it was presented. A press run by a writer for writers. The owner, Claire, also seemed very personable and open when I contacted her through email.

I love supporting small businesses. It’s even better when I get to support self-published and indie authors. That also includes small presses. So here’s a little interview I did to help myself and all my readers get to know this press and the owner just a little better.

Thank you, Claire, for taking the time to do this interview! First, I have some questions about Wisteria Publishing.

What is Wisteria Publishing, and what caused you to start this company?

Wisteria Publishing is a small, independent publisher created by a writer for writers. I wanted to start this company for two reasons. The first being that I had experienced being published twice and both experiences weren’t… ideal. Contracts were hard to understand. The second is that I went on to self-publish and loved the process. Also, I love books! Wisteria is a place where authors earn 50% of profits and read contracts that are easy to understand.

How many and who is currently part of Wisteria staff, and how do you want to see Wisteria grow in the future?

Besides myself, I also have a part time editor and part time creative assistant. Ideally in the future, I’d love to make these roles full-time, hire some more staff and even have a little office somewhere. I want it to put out wonderful books.

What is your biggest dream for Wisteria?

My biggest dream for Wisteria is that it is a Good company. That we are known for being appreciative and fair, and that we are always supportive and supported.

What sort of authors are you looking to work with?

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Starting a New Journey

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Cynthia D. Griffin

I have been thinking about it for a while and have decided to finally commit to doing instead of thinking and talking. I am beginning my own publication business. I even came up with a logo for it and everything. lol…

In all seriousness though, I am excited to be doing this. I feel a need to do this for myself and for others. In fact, Endless Journeys very first published work will be my eleven year-old son’s junior chapter novel. He’s been writing like crazy for years now (and it makes me so proud!) and I feel he finally has a great piece to be published. So we have been working on it diligently as a homeschool writing project for some time now. We are now entering the final stages of editing and putting the book together. I am proud and excited to be helping him realize a dream as well as encouraging him to reach for more.

I honestly don’t have any idea how far I’ll be taking this new adventure, but I am incredibly excited about it. I have quite a few writing projects for myself that I can’t wait to start putting out, but just the idea of being able to helps others do the same makes it even more fun and adventurous.

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Novel Submission Part 3: Creating Multiple Synopses

Posted on August 10, 2015July 7, 2019 by Cynthia D. Griffin

We’ve already talked about the query package and writing an effective cover letter, let’s get to the really hard part… the synopsis. First I want to say that I’ve found it’s impossible to write just one synopsis. To get a great synopsis, it’s better to do a few, because let’s face it your publisher is going to want more than the one to three page synopsis you submitted if they do accept your novel. They’ll most likely want a shorter blurb for the back cover. Also some publishers want more than a one to page synopsis when submitting to them, so why not just get them all done at once and be done with it.

For me it was easier to do the really long synopsis first. The chapter by chapter sum up of the entire novel, which reached a huge twenty pages. I doubt any publisher will want all of that, but it was good for me because I did not previously have what others might call an outline. Many of you may already have this chapter by chapter summary or outline completed. But I don’t do written outlines as I’m writing because I’m a pantser. I feel outlines distract from letting the story flow where it needs to go. So if you like to be organized and have a nice neat outline down before you even write the first word of your novel, then you can totally skip this step.

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Novel Submission Part 2: Writing an Effective Cover Letter

Posted on August 3, 2015July 7, 2019 by Cynthia D. Griffin

We talked about Novel Submission Part 1: The Query Package, but now let’s get more specific and discuss how to actually write a cover letter (and FYI, writing a novel cover letter is different than a short story cover letter, in fact there are some publications that don’t even require a cover letter for short story submissions).

The following post is an accumulation of what I learned from Gary A Braunbeck’s worksop on cover letters and synopses, research I’ve done, and my own observations as I wrote the cover letter for my novel.

Here are some important things to keep in mind as you begin to write the cover letter (or what some call a query letter)…

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book publishers, first publication, getting published, Jane Friedman, novel writing, Other Writing Stuff, publisher, publishers, publishing, The Writer's Toolbox, writing advice, writing books, writing workshop

Novel Submission Part 1: The Query Package

Posted on July 27, 2015July 7, 2019 by Cynthia D. Griffin

After many years, my novel is finally done, now comes the hardest part yet… it’s time to submit it. I have to admit, I’d rather write another entire novel from scratch then do what comes next, but paraphrasing Theodore Roosevelt, “anything worthwhile never comes easy.”

This summer I’ve been taking the first steps in getting my novel ready for submission by writing a cover letter (or sometimes called a query letter) and a handful of synopses (because it’s not good enough to have just one synopsis, but that’s another post!).

The first step I took in writing the cover letter and synopsis was to do research and see how the professionals were doing it. And I was also lucky enough to take a workshop about cover letters and synopses from science fiction author Gray A. Braunbeck last September. After a frustrating search, I finally managed to find my notes from his workshop. Yay!

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