Marion Margaret Press Publisher Update January 2017

The year 2016 was a slow year for us, but 2017 is shaping up to be hoppin’ crazy.

We published one book in 2016. The Still Life of Hannah Morgan by Lora Deeprose is so well-loved that it’s in its third publication. New cover art by The Woodsy Fawn and minor changes that readers suggested. If you love a real down-to-earth love story about overcoming life’s obstacles and finding your true happiness in life, this book is for you.

The Still Life of Hannah Morgan is available in print through various channels, and as a Kindle ebook. Within the next few months it will also be available on Kobo and ibooks, plus many other channels.

Although we’re making the move from using Lightning Source to Createspace, our standards are the same. All books receive professional editing and professional cover art before release. It’s just not worth the extra cost for the lowered customer service I received a few years back. I’m sure it could be improved by now since they’ve organized their departments, but not willing to risk paying more for less. Or paying more just to add channels our set of readers do not use.

The really good news about going into 2017 is that cover artist Ron Leming (or Bone, as many also know him) is back! After fighting surgery after surgery throughout 2016, he’s on the mend. He came back with a bang, selling one awesome book I’ve had the pleasure to watch grow from a newborn babe. When it’s time that announcement will come out. (It will be with another publisher.)

After discussing things with Sandie Bergen’s family, we’ve decided to make new goals with Sandie’s books. From now profit from her books will go into the kidney foundation that helped her so much through her years of health issues.

This month, we’ll pull down the The Jada-Drau series. That series will get new covers by The Woodsy Fawn to match her Cat’s Tales Series. New front and back pages will be designed for all her books and they’ll be republished throughout the year. This is seven books total so the process will happen over time from January through August of this year.

We’re currently working on a new book for Sandie Bergen fans, an anthology of her stories. Some previously published, some never seen before. We’re planning on a March 17^th release date for that, but I am still waiting for confirmation from The Woodsy Fawn. This book will feature illustrations on the inside as well, so we need to make sure March is enough time to get that done.

In addition, I’m looking at releasing my fantasy series this year, starting in March. I’m thrilled to have Ron back for this. I pushed the development aside to give him a chance to recover from his surgeries. As long as he’s able to do the covers in time for me, I won’t have to give the work to another artist. Not something I want to do. Ron’s been a dear friend of mine for over ten years and has partnered with me on so many projects.

To increase our readership, this year we will do a full range of advertising and social media marketing efforts. In the past, I’ve committed 20 hours a week promoting books through less than advantageous methods, much to the disappointment of authors. I’m not perfect, and I offered to take on books that aren’t for my ideal audiences, even though I had a combined reach of 10K people. And let’s admit it, although I’m a social media expert, seo expert, and a marketing expert now…I was just a newbie to the field back then. On top of that, today there are so many cool tools to play with and increase your outreach, it’s crazy fun. And productive!

I may even become more transparent with my marketing methods later this year and share the results. This is new for me too. I’m running a business, I agreed to publish, and as such, the author does not normally get insight into what’s going on in the background. Sandie, who was also my partner in business, in action and not legally, would tell me not to worry about it and not take the punches personally.

I tried not to, but find it still bugs me to this day even though the bad times were years ago. So, from now on, any authors I work with get full disclosure of what goes on behind the scenes with their books. Some things I’m doing now are showing promise. I’ve always said my authors are my partners, not just a number.  This is part of the new way of showing this.

No more getting told I did nothing after spending hours and hours over period of months trying to promote books that were out of my reach. I will no longer accept books that don’t match my own fan base either.

And authors have to act like partners. The simple plain fact is that fans do not just want to read your books, they want to know you…they want to be IN your life in some form. This means you have to show them that you care by actually “talking to them” online via your social media outreach – Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc. The publisher doing it alone doesn’t cut it anymore.

Not that Marion Margaret Press is accepting author submissions. Not saying that. Not even sure it will happen in the future. Even the anthology submissions were cancelled, seeing as Ron was our anthology manager too. I honestly don’t know if he’ll be up to it in the future, and if we do, we may explore crowdfunding those.

No…Marion Margaret Press has future goals that are more physical in nature versus online. I’m setting up for a physical business in a few years, and a book store is part of that plan. Marion Margaret Press books and books by friends of Marion Margaret Press will be in this book store. Ebooks will always be offered, but people show time and time again, the print book will never be out of style.

In 2016, Marion Margaret Press became a business under the umbrella name of Cacy Enterprises LLC. Cacy Enterprises LLC manages all my businesses: the two presses, website businesses, copywriting/content writing business, and the future physical business.

As Cacy Enterprises LLC grows, so will Marion Margaret Press. Look for a lot of things to come! Be sure to bookmark us for more updates, join the newsletter when I get it set up, and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. (After you like us on Facebook, be sure to choose to see us first and get notifications so you will actually see our posts!)