Writing

Why I Chose a “Small” Press

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

When I finished my first draft of Bondwitch, I googled “how to publish a book”, and boy, did I have a long road ahead of me. After lots and lots of editing, comments from beta readers, and more editing, I had a choice to make: query an agent, query a small press, or self-publish.

Querying an agent seems to be the more traditional path. Once an author signs with an agent, their agent will then pitch the author’s book to a publisher. If the publisher accepts the book, then the book gets published. The publisher has an editor, artist, and marketing team to help with the process

Going with a small press is very similar to the above, just minus the agent. The author acts as their own agent. They query the publisher, the publisher either accepts or rejects the book. These publishers are called “small press” because they either don’t publish as many books as “The Big Five” publishers per year, or they aren’t as well known, or they don’t offer the “whole package” (for example, one author friend is with a publisher who requires its authors to hire their own editor and cover artist, and the publisher covers everything else). Even with the label of “small”,  some are still pretty large. 

Self-publishing is where the author does everything on their own: editing, cover art, formatting, and marketing – or they pay someone to do it.

Of the three, self-publishing is the only one that guarantees your book will get published. If you want a publisher to publish your book, they have to accept it. That is often a long and painful road of rejections before someone believes your book is marketable. 

Regardless of which path an author takes, marketing is something the author must be heavily involved in. We have to create ways in which potential readers will come across our book and hopefully buy it. 

At first, I thought I wanted to go the agent route. As I researched agents who repped fantasy and romance, I discovered something. Most agents don’t accept a broad genre. They have something called a Manuscript Wish-List, which specifies what kind of stories within a chosen genre they are interested in. For example, one agent may list “Urban Fantasy with a strong female protagonist”. See how more specific that is than just “fantasy”? So as I looked at agents’ MSWLs, very few of them were asking for the kind of story Bondwitch is – or, at least it seemed that way to me. And the ones who did, wanted to rep authors from marginal backgrounds; and as a straight white Christian, that’s not me. Now, I want it understood that I am not victimizing myself here. I completely respect those agents for wanting to give diverse authors a better chance in the publishing world. It just simply meant that I needed to choose a different publishing path. 

As I started looking at small publishers, I came across a similar problem with agents. Many of them are so small, that they publish a very specific type of story, that once, again, Bondwitch did not fit into. Bondwitch falls under “mainstream” YA Fantasy, and many small publishers pride themselves on publishing more “unique” stories. 

At the same time that I was researching agents and small publishers, I started getting feedback from beta readers. Many of them couldn’t finish because they said they didn’t care for romance. I didn’t think I wrote a romance. Yes, there is a strong romantic subplot, but the main plot is not a romance. But, if the subplot was that big of a deal to potential readers, I needed to look at my genre categories differently. This led to a lot of research that I’ll talk about in a future post. But long story short, I was able to find a list of small publishers that had fantasy lines and romance lines, that way Bondwitch could fit into both. 

I actually found The Wild Rose Press by accident. Several of the stories I read on Readict  had “Published by The Wild Rose Press” at the end. I looked them up, and they didn’t require an agent for an author to query them! The stories I had been reading fell under the same aesthetic as Bondwitch, and I felt deep in my soul that The Wild Rose Press was the publisher for me. (My experience querying them can be read here.)

After all that research, and lots of thinking and going back and forth, I decided that querying a small press was the route for me. I like the idea of being my own agent, but I also need help with everything beyond writing the story. So the small press seemed like a great choice for me. I also believe in my story enough, that if all the publishers I queried rejected me, I was going to self-publish. While I queried, I created a self-publishing plan, just in case. Luckily I didn’t have to implement it, but at least I have it on the back burner if I ever want to, or if a future story doesn’t work for traditional publishers. 

I am very happy with The Wild Rose Press and I hope to stay with them for a long time. They will always be my first choice.

What’s in a Cover?

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

As much as we like to say, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” It simply isn’t true. The cover is what draws a potential reader to click on the title or pick it up and read the blurb. Then the blurb should be good enough to convince the potential reader to buy it, and go from potential reader to reader. 

Last week my socials shared the cover to Bondwitch, and I would like to share how the cover was created.

 I started to create the cover in my mind when the list of potential publishers dwindled, and I thought I would be self-publishing; which meant I would have to figure out the cover. You can buy premade stock covers, but I wanted my cover to match my story, not just kind of match my story. So I knew that I was going to have to find an artist who could create what I wanted.

I have always loved the original cover to Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. The snow white hands offer the tempting red apple. Forbidden fruit equates to forbidden love. That cover captivated me when I was sixteen, and it still captivates me today. So, with the Twilight inspiration in my mind, I also wanted the idea of a hand holding something. I envisioned a hand holding floating spheres to represent water, fire, earth, and air. 

When I signed with The Wild Rose Press, the contract stated that the publisher pays for the cover art and has final approval of the cover art. I was perfectly fine with that because they’ve been in this business for at least seventeen years, so they know what they are doing. So, I pushed my idea onto the back burner and focused on editing my story. 

When it was time to do the cover art, I received an “Art Cover Information” form to fill out. The form asked me general questions about my story like the tone, the time period, the geographical setting. The form provided a list of TWRP artists and links to look at their previous work, then I could pick my top artist – but it wasn’t guaranteed they would be the one assigned to my book. I then got to provide links to book covers that matched the aesthetic I wanted emulated in mine. 

Then came specific questions to help create the deeper details of the art. And with those questions came some helpful statistics. According to research this is the order of cover components most likely to sell:

  1. Covers without any people
  2. Covers with just a male
  3. Covers with a couple
  4. Covers with just a female 

Research indicated that my vision of a hand holding elemental magic would work! (That isn’t to say the other covers are bad, because they aren’t. I simply felt validated that my original vision was a good one.)

Another bit of helpful advice the form gave me was to NOT request too much detail. I think it said to try to go for less than 5 components, perhaps only 3. The form explained that too much detail was hard to decipher on the thumbnail images that readers would be looking at online. 

With that helpful information, I decided to decrease the number of magical spheres. And this is what I requested:

What element do you consider most important: a visual representation of magic

High Pitch Concept: When a young witch’s powers are unlocked, her family’s enemies descend upon her community; forcing her to flee across the country and train in secret.

General vision: a feminine hand, palm up, a sphere that represents one of the elements (preferably fire) floating above the palm

The artist given my book was Jennifer Greeff, and my goodness, I think she did an amazing job! 

She gave me exactly what I asked for and then some. And I already have the gears turning in my brain for the covers for the rest of the series. 

What’s your favorite book cover? Why? (Or top three, if you’re like me, and you can’t choose only one to save your life.) Let me know in the comments!

Happy Love Your Editor Day, Sam!

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

October 31 is Love Your Editor Day at The Wild Rose Press. My editor, Samantha Keating, is the reason why I even had a chance. I owe her so much. She has officially been my editor since August 2022, but I have been in contact with her since November 2021. 

When I was ready to query Bondwitch, The Wild Rose Press was my first choice publisher. When you query TWRP, you send your query to a general query email, so I didn’t know who exactly would be reading my query. Thirteen days after I sent my query I received an email from Samantha requesting the first three chapters! 

A little over two weeks after that, Samantha responded with a very detailed and helpful critique on what skills and style TWRP expects, which I did not quite meet. She explained that to improve my story to WRP standards would require a rewrite, so she couldn’t accept my full manuscript. She encouraged me to keep writing and not give up.

As more rejections came in from other publishers, and I had conversations with my fellow writers, I learned that Samantha’s helpful critique was a rare gem. I also learned that the suggestions she made to improve my writing weren’t unique to TWRP. Almost all publishers today want the same thing: show, don’t tell. I still really wanted to get a second chance with TWRP, so I got to work rewriting Bondwitch with the suggested improvements.

It took me four months to fix my manuscript. When it was ready, I emailed Samantha directly, and asked if TWRP allowed resubmissions. She responded that they normally don’t, but she was interested in finding the answer to a cliffhanger scene in chapter 2. She invited me to resubmit the first three chapters, and she would take a look at my improvements. Two weeks after that, Samantha requested the full manuscript!

I didn’t hear anything for three months – which, I understand, is pretty standard for a full manuscript request. Then, on my wedding anniversary, I was sitting at a table in Cafe Orleans, Disneyland when my phone alerted me to an email from Samantha. My heart rate accelerated tenfold. I looked across the table at my husband. “I’m scared to read it.”

“Just open it!” he said.

I clicked on the notification, read the first few lines of the email, and screamed in the middle of a Disney restaurant. Samantha had finished my story, and was pushing it forward to the managing editor, who has the final say. 

A week after that, Samantha emailed me that Bondwitch was being accepted by TWRP, and the official contract would be sent to me within twenty-four hours. She also told me that she would be my editor. Once again, I was in a public place when this email came through. This time, I was in a hotel lobby for a work retreat, so I couldn’t scream out loud, but I definitely teared up.

Samantha and I are currently knee deep in editing, and I love working with her. Her style of editing is to approach it from a teaching angle. For the content editing, she made comments for the first one hundred pages with the goal that at that point I would have learned from her comments enough that I can find and fix the rest on my own. At first I was nervous about that. I didn’t think I could do it. I thought I would need her to hold my hand the whole time. But she knew exactly what she was doing – and that’s why she’s the editor! I’m three chapters beyond where Samantha stopped making comments, and I can “hear” her in my head pointing stuff out as I read over my words.

I owe this wonderful journey to Samantha. She went above and beyond by giving me detailed feedback long before she was my official editor. She believed in me and gave me a second chance. And she is an amazing teacher. 

Happy Love Your Editor Day, Sam. I’m so grateful you are my editor. I look forward to our continued partnership.

How I Got Into Writing

Posted on by Chelsey M. Ortega

I think at some point in our youth, all of us desire to be famous. Whether it be an actor, athlete, musician, or writer; we want to be known for our talents. When I was a child, I wanted to be an author, with JK Rowling as my inspiration. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a professional ballroom dancer, with the cast of Dancing with the Stars as my models. The funny – or sad – thing about dreams is at some point they change to be more “practical.” My practical dream was to be a teacher. I specifically wanted to teach History and ESL, and I reached that point in my career only 2 years in! But as I went through college, became a wife and mother, and started my teaching career, I still had a desire to write. 

It always goes back to that teacher who believed in you.

My 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Hansen, embedded a love of writing into my nine-year-old heart during her fractured fairy tale unit. We read Dinorella, Prince Cinders, The Three Javelinas, and many others. Then, it was our turn. I wrote a Sleeping Beauty story using Star Wars characters. Darth Vader was Maleficent, Luke was Prince Philip, and Leah was Aurora. I was so proud of my story, and from then on, I wanted to be an author.

Three years later, in sixth grade, my teacher Mrs. Bunce had a unit where we got to actually “publish” a book. She connected this project with our world history unit on Ancient Egypt. We each wrote our own story based in Ancient Egypt, split up the parts of our stories into pages, and typed each page up. After printing out the pages, we drew the illustrations. Then Mrs. Bunce helped us copy our pages onto larger papers front and back so when we folded the pages, it made a book. We sewed the pages down the middle. We then hot glued fabric onto cardboard to make our book cover, and hot glued the first and final pages to the cardboard covers. If we wanted to leave one with Mrs. Bunce, we made two; which I did.

I kept in touch with Mrs. Bunce, and every once in a while she would say, “I still have my copy of your book! I use it as one example when I’m introducing the project to my current students.” Her support really lit a fire in me that maybe I could really publish one day.

Teenage Angst Poetry

During the difficult teen years, I had a notebook for poetry. Everything that upset me, I wrote a dramatic poem about. I still have my notebook. Most of the poems make me cringe, but there are a few that still tug at my heart. 

My attempt at mommy blogging

I was a new mom in 2013 when mommy blogging exploded onto the social media scene. And I thought, “I’d like to do that.” So I started my own blog: Milk Chocolate. I published between every other month to once a month for nine years. I wrote about motherhood, pregnancy, myself, my religion, and how my family celebrated each holiday and birthday. My ability to publish frequently decreased when I started my teaching career. I also started writing fiction at the same time, and have focused on that since 2020.

Guest Contributor

In 2016, I submitted a guest article to (what was at the time) Mormon Women Stand (now called Latter-Day Saint Women Stand). They accepted my guest article, and a month later invited me to join the website as a monthly contributor. I wrote religious articles for Latter-Day Saint Women Stand for three years. This experience helped me improve my writing skills significantly because there were designated editors every article had to go through before it could be published. With my personal blog, I was in complete control; with LDSWS, I had to work with others. 

COVID – the killer or creator of dreams?

Throughout my early years of motherhood and blogging, I still had a head full of ideas for fiction. I started two separate novels I never finished. In May 2020, my husband lost his job, which became a huge motivator for me to make something of myself. I had been a stay at home mom for five years, and I was ready to expand my horizons. Because of my husband’s unemployment, we needed a consistent income right away. So I simultaneously applied for teaching jobs and began writing another book. Well, third time’s the charm. That was the book I finished and will be published soon. (My journey to finding a publisher will be a separate post.) 

Writing has always been a part of my life. From short stories, to poetry, to blogging, to my big dream of full length fiction. I’m so excited and grateful to be here, at the cusp of my dream. And I’m grateful that you are here on this journey with me.