Sarah Hendess and her sister, Charissa Howe, were on a family trip in England when they hatched their plot to start a publishing company for independent authors. They sat inside an English pub, forming the idea for Two Sisters Press into a solid plan. “I jokingly call us a PUBlishing company considering where we were when we had the bright idea,” said Hendess, laughing. Independent authors don’t have to worry. Their decision to dive into the publishing business wasn’t inspired by too much ale. As readers, they found themselves frustrated over the inability to find the specific types of books they enjoyed and wanted to have options. “Starting our own press just seemed like a good solution to the problem,” said Hendess. A pledge to deliver a better experienceAs an author herself, Hendess is a huge fan of independent publishing companies. She worked with a small family press (Wild Rose Press) to publish her historical novel, Second Chances in Hollywood. “I was in a weird space,” she said. “I wasn’t having any luck with agents because no one was sure how to position my book in the market, even though it’s clearly a historical novel.” That’s when she ended up on Wild Rose Press’s proverbial doorstep and had decidedly better luck. Hendess said she’s happy with her publisher and has signed on with them to exclusively publish her second book, A Capital Christmas. The historical romance takes place at the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C. Hendess and Howe hope to provide the same kind of service to the independent authors they hand-select for publication with Two Sisters Press. “One of the biggest frustrations I had as an aspiring author was how long it took to get a response from a press or an agent,” said Hendess. “The standard is to wait four to six months, and if you don’t hear from them, then assume it’s a no.” They don’t want authors querying their press to ever experience that level of aggravation. “We want every single author who submits something to us to get an answer one way or the other within four weeks. We feel it’s considerate and respectful of the author’s time. Even if it’s a no, we’re going to tell them.” How the publishing process worksThe publishing process for Two Sisters Press is straightforward. Any author of adult historical fiction, young adult fiction, and middle-grade fiction can submit a partial or full manuscript for consideration. A full list of genres is on their website under the publishing tab. “It’s a shorter list of things we don’t take,” said Hendess. “We’re not doing nonfiction except for memoirs. We’re not interested in graphic violence or Stephen King-style submissions. We’re both big fans of historical novels and specifically seek out rom-coms and other romance novels.” Hendess said the sisters prioritize lesser-heard voices when they have a waiting list for publication. Two Sisters Press currently is in a holding pattern for new submissions until January 2024 because it has reached capacity, she said. Because of their small size, they can only publish between six and eight full-length novels and 15 to 20 picture books per year at this time. “When we are accepting new manuscripts, you can find a form on our website to fill out that asks for a synopsis, contact information, and the first five to 10 pages of the manuscript. We then review it to decide if it’s a good fit for our press. If we think it is, then the next step is for us to ask for the full manuscript.” Sending the full manuscript isn’t a guarantee of publication, Hendess warned. “Sometimes once we get the full manuscript, we can see that the premise is good, but the manuscript is lacking somewhere.” As a traditional royalty publishing house, authors won’t pay anything upfront if the sisters accept their manuscript for publication. “Our rates are 40 percent on eBooks and 10 percent on print sales,” Hendess said. From submission to publication takes approximately 12 months. Shorter books or those that need less polishing before printing can get out the door faster. “We don’t want to do it too fast because we want to have time to hype up the book and do a proper book launch,” Hendess said. A few words of advice to new authorsAlways do your research before submitting your manuscript to agents or publishing houses. Hendess said that’s the number one piece of advice she can offer aspiring authors to increase their chances of success. “We sometimes get submissions from authors who clearly haven’t done their research on what we accept and don’t accept,” she said. “You’re setting yourself up for failure when you blindly submit your manuscript. A rejection from us doesn’t mean your book is bad. It just means you queried the wrong person.” Another tip she offered was to find critique partners who will tell you the truth about your manuscript and help you make it better before you submit it for publishing. “My critique partners are the reason that I have a published book,” said Hendess. If you’re an author who partakes in the NaNoWriMo challenge to complete a manuscript in 30 days during National Writing Month in November, Hendess begs you not to submit that manuscript on the first day of December to any publishing houses or agents. “Trust me, they’re not ready for query. Do yourself a favor and hire a freelance editor first to do some polishing and line checks. A lot of (small presses) are doing this on the side, so if it needs more work than we have time to put into it, then we may take a pass.” Lastly, don’t be afraid of small presses as an independent author because the benefits are numerous, she said. “It’s a good way to get noticed by the big five (publishing houses) if it’s your goal in life, especially if you win any awards.” Visit 2sisterspress.com to learn more about submission requirements or to check out their list of published authors. About the Author
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Is it possible to write a book in one weekend? Sure, it is. Just ask children’s author Ammaar Reshi (although he probably wishes you wouldn’t). Reshi, a design manager at Brex, used popular artificial intelligence (AI) tools ChatGPT and Midjourney to create and publish a story called “Alice and Sparkle,” over a weekend. Reshi claims the book is the first of its kind because it was co-created with AI. He gives his writing and illustration partner full credit in the book synopsis. But wait…it gets weirder. The book is about a young girl named Alice who creates her own AI named Sparkle. In the book, they go on fun adventures, combining their knowledge to change the world for the better (or so the synopsis promises). Customer reviews give it a 3.1 out of 5 stars on Amazon. Some reviewers took pot-shots at the fact Reshi relied too heavily on AI to write the book. However, a few others said they were less bothered by the AI involvement and more concerned with the complete lack of storytelling throughout the book. “I’ve seen some amazing stuff that was made using A.I. tools such as Midjourney and ChatGPT,” said a reviewer with the handle Hamsteroid. “This is not that.” Hamsteroid goes on to say the book lacks an arc in the storytelling and just abruptly ends. Fellow reviewer Langue Master said, “This is what happens when AI is used to write a story with no human writer behind to guide things. This story is quite empty in terms of its story arc and content and the illustrations are poorly made/generated.” Ouch. Besides the possibility of garnering blistering reviews for AI-generated content, there are other reasons why you probably shouldn’t rely on it to write that dystopian novel you’ve had brewing in your brain for the last decade. Before you make nice with ChatGPT or another AI tool, take some time to discover: What the heck is an AI content generator?Technophobes (and those living under rocks) may have zero clue what AI content generators are all about. For the uninitiated, AI content generators are technology programmed to use Natural Language Generation (NLG) to turn thoughts into words on a page. Since AI can’t think like humans, engineers train them to learn how to engage in human-like conversations. They rely on vast amounts of information gleaned from the internet – articles, blogs, news stories, Reddit threads – to respond to prompts. One of the most talked about technologies in this space is ChatGPT. It’s dominated the news cycle since the beginning of the year. However, AI content generators existed long before ChatGPT hit the scene. Some of the most popular technologies for creating written content include Jasper AI and AI Writer. DALL-E and Midjourney currently covet the top spots for AI image creation. How is AI disrupting the publishing industry?While most organizations are figuring out how to use AI to replace their marketing teams full of humans, there is another group of people coveting its so-called power to generate words quickly. Wannabe authors have turned to generative AI to make their dreams come true. As we discussed earlier in this blog post, using AI to write a novel can backfire. Some publishers have publicly admonished writers who used AI to generate bland content. Science fiction publisher Clarkeworld Magazine took to its Twitter account in mid-February to proclaim it was closing submissions because of the sheer volume of AI-generate content it had received. Of the 1,200 submissions it received in February, Clarkesworld founder Neil Clarke claimed more than 500 were AI-produced. Another publication, Science, has outright banned content generated by AI in any of its journals. Its policy states, “text generated from AI, machine learning, or similar algorithm tools” is considered scientific misconduct. On the image side of things, Getty Images has banned the upload and sale of AI-generated illustrations because of fears over future copyright claims. We’ll talk more later about whether you can copyright AI-produced content. What are some of the common problems with AI content?AI language models like ChatGPT can assist with content generation. However, they’re not a substitute for human creativity, critical thinking, or subject matter expertise. Beyond lacking the emotions of a human writer, relying on AI to write an entire novel (or any other content, for that matter) comes with risks.
Who holds the copyright for AI-generated content and illustration?The short answer to who holds the copyright for AI-generated content and illustration is not you. Herein lies a huge problem with organizations relying on AI tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney for creating all their written and visual content. Images and text 100 percent generated by AI don’t qualify for copyright protections, according to the U.S. Copyright Office. In late February, the copyright office ruled in the case of the comic book “Zarya of the Dawn,” whose author used illustrations produced solely by Midjourney. Since non-humans created the images, author Kristina Kashtanova gained copyright protections for the story, but the images were excluded. The same holds true for text written by AI that humans have not altered in some way. When AI makes all the decisions about how something is written or designed, it bypasses the human creative process required for copyrighting. Choosing humans over machinesIt’s tempting to turn to machines over humans to produce content, especially when you’re looking to cut expenses. Aspiring authors can fall into this trap along with organizations. Choosing humans over machines is a better option. Not only does it get you higher-quality content, but it also ensures you own the rights to that content once it’s completed. We hope you make the right decision. AuthorShari Berg has known she wanted to be a writer since she was old enough to hold a pencil in her hand. She believes everyone has a story to tell, and it’s her job to discover it. Shari owns The Write Reflection, a Pittsburgh-based copywriting and content writing company that empowers small business owners to wield the power of words. Rules of Order, the latest offering from Jeff Vande Zande, evokes an eerie feeling of déjà vu for more than one reason. Firstly, it features a group of people forced to live together who can’t agree on, well, anything. Sound familiar? It’s like a real-life depiction of current events set against a dystopian backdrop. Secondly, fans that have read his previous work, The Neighborhood Division, recognize the characters and the storyline. The overarching theme in that collection of stories focused on battling with the instincts of the self vs. the community. One of the stories called “Load” left readers wanting more. Not one to leave his fans hanging, Vande Zande fulfilled their wishes by expanding the short into its own novel. In the shorter version, readers are introduced to the main character, Harvey Crowe. He has good intentions but struggles a bit with the execution. When we meet Crowe again in Rules of Order, he’s still busy trying to convince his neighbors that they must get on board with strict guidelines for weight limits in their individual apartments to protect the entire building from collapse. Although this time around, we gain more insight into his motives. If you’re asking why they couldn’t just move to a new building, readers get the impression that’s not an option in this dystopian future. Readers aren’t told exactly how it happened, but we’re led to believe that leaving the building and venturing into the outside world is akin to an immediate death sentence. It’s effective storytelling that Vande Zande leaves it up to the reader to fill in the blanks on how the outside world became so inhospitable to human life. “The bigger message I wanted to convey is that it was probably a good dose of capitalism that destroyed the outside world, and somehow, capitalism still found a way inside the building,” said Vande Zande. “It just became a microcosm of how the planet used to conduct itself. We want more for ourselves as individuals, even if we’re hurting the group.” The sky is falling…literallyWithout spoiling the storyline, it’s safe to say for most of the novel, Vande Zande taps into the reader’s anxiety with a sense of urgency about when – not if – the building will collapse. This sense of impending doom led to Falling Sky as the original title of the novel. “It was titled Falling Sky for a long time,” said Vande Zande. “But the publisher eventually decided it was too close to some other movie and book titles and that because of it, it just wasn’t grabbing him.” Vande Zande started brainstorming a new title and kept coming back to Robert’s Rules of Order, which he used as a frequent reference when writing the board room scenes for the book. “I thought about making the new title Rules of Order and the publisher loved it.” Of course, with Vande Zande, there always is a hidden meaning behind his book titles. Not only is Rules of Order a nod to Robert’s Rules, but it also is a play on words for how the order of society – rich vs. poor – was conducted within the building. The book title isn’t the only aspect of Rules of Order with a double entendre. Characters’ names also carried hidden meanings. One such character is the well-to-do Gerald LaMark, one of the newest and youngest members of the apartment building board. Vande Zande said he named LaMark after the character Lamarque in Les Miserables. “It’s kind of an homage to him because there’s a line in one of the songs that only Lamarque speaks for we people here below,” said Vande Zande. “It seemed a good parallel since LaMark speaks for the residents on the lower floors of the building.” Two of the most interesting characters in the book are the building supervisor, Sam, and his wife, Anya. Unfortunately for Crowe, he can hear every conversation the couple has through a leaky ventilation pipe between their apartments. Most of those arguments are about how much they dislike each other. “Some readers have shared with me that the super and his wife represent the oversharing that happens on social media these days,” said Vande Zande. “For me, they represent the existential threat of nuclear weapons that we can’t control among all the things that we try to do to protect ourselves and our planet. The whole planet can get annihilated only on our inability to get along.” It’s hardly a surprise the building in Rules of Order is an analogy for our planet. The world is facing an ongoing climate crisis, divisiveness, and authoritarianism – all things represented within the microcosm of Crowe’s building. Sam and Anya represent the overarching feeling that we’re in the palm of a hand we can’t control and that can crush us at any moment no matter what insignificant actions we take to prevent our demise. “The more we try, the harder we fail,” said Vande Zande. “We’re really botching it as a species.” Looking toward the futureReaders who enjoy The Rules of Order also may want to check out Vande Zande’s 50-page novelette, Parable of Weeds, which discusses the nuances of gated communities.
It may be a while before fans of Vande Zande’s brand of dystopian writing have a new story to immerse themselves in. After writing two novels in 2020, Vande Zande said he needs some time to restore his creative juices. Not to worry, though. He’ll be back to taking aspects of the real world, turning the volume up on them, and creating an amazing tale again in the future. For now, readers can get their copy of Rules of Order on Amazon. |
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