Hi Kitty!
Thanks for agreeing to
talk to me. It's great to have you here!
First off, tell us a
little about yourself.
You know Rae, this is
usually the hardest question of all, so where to begin. I’m a 40
year old mother of a beautiful 12 year old daughter, and married to a
good man. We are animal lovers and belong to 2 Chihuahua’s, 3 Cats,
and 3 Ferrets. We often find ourselves rehabilitating wildlife when
we can and are currently looking to buy our first home. I recently
graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Marketing in
August of 2012 and now run a very successful publishing business
known as GMTA Publishing. This year we have just started our imprints
and intend to unveil the sites for those very soon!
You run publishing
house Great Minds Think Aloud. How did come to get up GMTA, and what
was the inspiration behind it? Were there any frustrations along the
way, if so how did you overcome them? What's the best thing about
running a publishing house?
Well Great Minds Think
Aloud actually began two years ago as a book club/review hub. I began
to make a lot of friends both publisher and author as well as many
others and found out just how much talent was out there waiting for
someone to come along and publish their books. For a year I learned
as much as I could about the business and began gathering thoughts
and ideas and all the information I could find. Early January of 2012
I decided I may as well jump in with both feet. I began to publish
and the start was very bumpy. Starting any business involves a lot of
trial and error, staying up all hours of the night (which I still do)
and working HARD.
This year it seems I
have learned a lot, gone through many changes and cultivated GMTA
into a serious publishing business. We are very picky about the
manuscripts we accept, more-so than we were in the beginning. We have
a strict policy in place for submissions and we have obtained the
services of some excellent editors that we recommend to authors that
do not have their own. GMTA has become a business that is more about
quality than quantity and we intend to remain that way. After an
overwhelming response that started at the beginning of the year we
have actually now closed submissions until July or at least we plan
to open them back up in July given that we catch up with what we
already have.
All in all GMTA is
doing really well and we have a feeling that 2013 will be our year to
shine! The best thing about running a publishing house is meeting
some amazingly talented writers. I also enjoy the fact that I get to
meet them personally. We don’t operate like many publishing houses
that make their authors submit through an agent, instead we allow
authors to submit directly to us and I think that makes a huge
difference.
What are your hopes
and dreams for GMTA? What kinds of books do you publish?
My hopes and dreams for GMTA is that we will grow to be supremely
successful. I want to make ‘the big six’ into ‘the big seven’
I would love to either become an imprint of one of the larger
corporate conglomerates of to become a corporate conglomerate
ourselves! As for books we publish almost every genre save memoirs
and poetry.
You do a heck of a
lot of work! I'm always seeing you online and am constantly inspired
by how much you do. How do you keep yourself going? What inspires
you? A lot of people use this opportunity to throw in a long
speech about their love of coffee and though I do love it, that isn’t
what keeps me going. What keeps me going is the genuine love I have
for literature and the undying need to produce a book that people
will enjoy. I intend to work hard for all my authors and that is why
you see me on all hours of the night plugging away with promoting our
books and trying to make sure that every single person on all social
networks see what we’re doing. I want our authors to succeed and be
happy in their experience with us and I want them to know that I will
always work hard for each and every one of them no matter if it means
me staying up until all hours of the night and morning and some of
the next night as well! Lol
What would your
advice be to anyone who wants to start their own business? Do it!
First and foremost you have to bit the bullet, jump in with both feet
and no matter how high the water gets doggy paddle like hell! In fact
it’s a good idea to have some water-wings as well just in case.
It’s not easy, I will definitely never say that but it takes tons
of dedication, a true love for what you do, and it takes discipline,
and above all patience. You have to work hard to create anything
worth-while, but if you try hard enough you can succeed. No dream is
unattainable and no goal too high!
As we know, there
are millions of authors out there, some of who will be reading this.
What advice would you give to authors who are looking to submit their
work to a publisher? What advice would you give them once they've
been published? Let these readers know you are here and you’re
not going away until they read your book and give that feedback good
or bad! One thing you should always, always remember as well, Rome
wasn’t built in a day, and even when it was done there were people
that didn’t like it. You’ll always find your critics, and they
will, at times, be harsh but even Tolkien had his critics, so did
C.S. Lewis, George R.R. Martin, some of the greatest and most amazing
authors in the world had their critics for as far back as we can
remember so don’t let that get you upset. There are worse things in
life than someone telling you that your book is no good. Trust me,
you’ll have just as many or more telling you that it is GREAT and…
remember too, opinions are like… well you know the saying.
The world is a dark
place right now. If you could address a global audience, what message
would you give to the world? I would tell them that it is time
to pull together. You’re right Rae it is a dark world and there are
some very bad people out there but if the good ones don’t start
doing something about it it’s only going to get worse. Our planet
is in serious trouble in more ways than one. From the bad economy, to
the pollution problems, to the problems with society as a whole, it’s
not getting any better and it can’t until we start fighting back.
Until we learn to stand as a unit regardless of race, creed, or
religion, there’s no hope for anyone. The key to that is to get rid
of the hatred, be kind to your fellow man and try to live life as you
should, treat everyone with the respect and dignity they deserve.
Finally, where can
we find you online? Everywhere! Literally that’s almost true.
If you Google GMTA you are likely to find something on us somewhere.
But if you really want to find us here are some sites that may
interest you and we’ll have others up soon:
Main Site:
http://www.gmtapublishing.com/
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/GMTALITERARY
Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/gmtapublishing/
Deviantart:
http://gmtapublishing.deviantart.com/
GMTA Review Team Blog:
http://gmtaliterarycommunity.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment