A to Z Challenge : Entangled Publishing

Well, shucks. I misscheduled my A to Z Delta post on Dating Disasters and thus missed a letter for the challenge. Lesson learned, folks. Now that I'm settled into my nights schedule at work, I can keep a better eye on these things.

While on leave to Washington last weekend, I attended the Rose City Romance Writers Spring Intensive, and I had the pleasure of meedting Liz Pelletier, editor and one of the founders of Entangled Publishing.

She entered the publishing business in an unusual way. After starting Savvy Authors (if you're an author and don't know about it, check it out. It's a fantastic resource with tons of affordable workshops and informative posts every month), she ended up with a small surplus of profit on what she'd intended to be a non-profit venture. So what could she do with the money that would help authors most?

She noticed the majority of authors weren't getting published. As anyone else would do *ahem* she developed a business model based on case studies she'd read on Boeing's success and gathered friends who shared the same vision of how a publishing company should be. Entangled pays higher royalties because of the management team's belief that the author should receive more of the profits for their work. They are not a digital first as some people assume, instead releasing print and digital simultaneously.

Entangled is one amazing publisher, a rapidly expanding one. They've recently added multiple imprints, similar to Category lines by Harlequin. In my opinion, they'll give Harlequin a run for their money some day, though there's plenty of room in the market that's been virtually untouched by publishers other than Harlequin. They've also contracted with a distributor to get select titles on the shelves at Barnes & Noble.

I think what impresses me most about this publisher is that despite the need for the bottom line (it is a business, after all), Entangled cares about and stands behind their authors. Liz shared a lot of tips and information on how distribution works. She has only a minute to pitch the books when she markets them, so getting a great, hooky pitch down to that length is a huge plus. Overall, I was quite impressed with this publisher. Of course, I also know someone published with them, Lisa Kessler, and she's had nothing but glowing things to say about them.

What publishers do you have your eye on? What do you think of Entangled's unique "it takes a village" model of publishing? Have you used Savvy Authors before? Do you think a small publisher can take on the big guns? What do you think they need to accomplish that?