We have always said that there aren’t enough hours in a day for the team to get through all of the boring ‘admin’ tasks of keeping IQ running, as well as really pushing our titles so that they sell as well as possible. So we all put our heads together, and the result was reached pretty quickly. We need another pair of hands and fresh pair of eyes.

The great thing with today’s technology is that the applicants don’t even need to be in Oxford (or the UK for that matter!), as long as they have Skype and a decent internet connection.

So if you would like to find out more about this role, please don’t hesitate to email Sara (sjslack@inspired-quill.com) to ask for an information/application pack, or to ask any specific questions.

Oh! And yes, this is a paid opportunity (I know you were all wondering!).

So why the radio silence?

It was partly to do with time restraints. With so much going on, we simply haven’t had the time to update  this blog with the kind of quality content that we feel you chaps deserve. Now, however, we plan on keeping you all up to date at least once a fortnight. We know it may not seem like an awful lot, but this means that we’ll get great content to you on time every two weeks, while leaving enough time for us to carry giving enough care and attention to our cohort of amazing authors.

This Weekend:

This weekend sees Sara and Peter accompanied to ‘Event Horizon’ in Derby by the wonderful Matthew Munson and Ben Hennessy. This convention has a wonderful ‘first year’ line-up, and we are very proud not only to have been asked to attend, but also to present a panel about the changing world of publishing. (Although admittedly, Sara is a bit nervous – Ed)

Submissions:

Those of you who follow our Twitter account (@InspiredQuill) may have seen a few top-secret (okay, not really) tweets about reopening submissions. We can now officially reveal that the ‘Submissions’ page here on the IQ website will be updated on Monday evening. This means that for a limited time, you will be able to submit your manuscripts to us for consideration. We’re incredibly excited to be doing this after such a long stint away from this area of our work!

If you do happen to be in Derby this Sunday, please pop along to our table and say hullo to us!

~Sara-Jayne

Well, the (slightly over a week) long festivities for the #IQBirthday 2012 are now over! We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our journey so far…and that you were one of the (approximately) 2,000 people who downloaded one of our freebies last week! If you did manage to nab a free copy, please feel free to email us here at IQ with your thoughts, or simply post a review up on your local Amazon site. We really appreciate the time it takes you to do this, and at this stage, we know that every review counts.

The prize and prizewinner for the #IQBirthday hashtag competition will be announced on Friday, so keep a look-out for that. We didn’t have as many people twittering about us as we’d hoped, but then again what with every single Staff member of IQ deciding to have ‘life stuff’ to do all at the SAME TIME, we perhaps didn’t market this birthday as well as we ought to have done. Our amazing Interns will hopefully help us to rectify this marketing situation over the coming two and a half months, however. (No pressure, guys!)

I just want to take this opportunity to thank you all again. I know IQ has had a tumultuous six months or so, what with the reorganisation of master ‘to-do’ lists, and the epic saga which was the website. (Which still isn’t entirely finished, but we’re chipping away at it whenever we have a few spare moments!)

Our next news update will feature our plans for the future year in enough detail to (hopefully) get you all excited about the new projects we will be undertaking.

In the meantime, why not tell us what YOU hope IQ will be doing this year? More publishing Q&A sessions? Publishing more poetry or short stories? How about finally getting around to doing those podcasts? Let us know! (And you never know…anyone who posts here might just get their names put into the #IQBirthday prize draw!)

So today, I thought it only fair that we hear from a couple of our interns! (Disclaimer: the whole intern team were emailed and asked if they wished to provide blurbs, but in between being generally epic and busy – and having social lives [lucky sots!] these are the ones I received).

Also, I apologise for this being a day overdue. Completely my fault, due to general running-around-like-a-mad-person level of busyness.

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Sarah Buxton

Being a Marketing Intern is what I call my ‘night job’. It’s what you find me doing after 9pm, the lights dimmed, hunched over a computer screen, chugging Redbull… (is anyone else having night-before-a-deadline university flashbacks?) My day job is teaching English as a second language to children in Pamplona in Spain. It primarily involves playing musical chairs, singing ‘Wheels on the Bus’ and finger painting. And don’t get me wrong, working with children great. It’s fulfilling and hilarious and exhausting all at once. But it’s my day job. My night job is where- fingers crossed – my real future lies.

I think the whole concept of Inspired Quill is just brilliant. I love that an English graduate living in Spain with no prior experience can learn so much in such a short time. So far my internship has consisted mostly of research; finding bloggers for book reviews and researching literary awards for example, but I’ve also had a hand in creating media kits and writing a cover letter. It doesn’t sound like much, but believe me it’s interesting and eye-opening and of course will be invaluable when I eventually grow up and apply for publishing jobs in England. What’s more, I love that I now have the opportunity and freedom to work one-on-one with an author I really admire to market a book that I really enjoyed reading. Sure beats finger-painting, anyway.

P.S. Happy Birthday I.Q!

Emily Gussin

I am really excited to have been given the opportunity to do this internship at ‘Inspired Quill’, though quite nervous too! I never expected an internship to be so hands on but I am very grateful for it. So far it’s been the perfect balance of being self-directed, along with support being available when I need it. I am marketing ‘Claiming One’ by E.J. Runyon, which is a really good collection of short stories so hopefully I can let the world know about it! It’s been great so far, I’ve mainly been doing emails, setting out ideas and planning how we are going to market the book, but I think we’ve made a good start. I feel like I’ve learned a lot already and we’ve only just started! I’m enjoying working with both E.J. and Sara, getting the perspective of both the author and publisher. I think it is really great of Sara and ‘Inspired Quill’ to offer this type of internship; it’s something loads of publishers should learn from. I think it is a fantastic way of creating a proper relationship between the publishers and the writers, as well as a great opportunity for students like me who want/need every bit of experience they can get and really benefit from this kind of work. I’m looking forward to the progress of the internship and I hope I can contribute to the success of both ‘Claiming One’ and ‘Inspired Quill’.

Lyn Midnight

Now, I’m looking at my friend here – Sara Slack – and I’m thinking: she must be feeling like a proud mother at her baby’s first birthday! Although in the case of Inspired Quill, it’s not a tutu, it’s a cool party where your baby is the center of attention. As it should be.

What’s my part in this? *looks around* Well, for one thing, not everyone actually gives you an opportunity to look behind closed doors and take part in the publishing process. I’ve generally done editorial stuff so far and I’ve loved it! I think it’s just my way of channeling my inner control freak into something useful, instead of something pointless and ridiculous (like soap operas or facebook).

So I’m looking forward to many more birthday parties where we celebrate our beloved Inspired Quill. Writers used to write with quills because it tested their brain, their hand, and their poise. And this place is truly poised… even though it’s technically still a baby drooling over the parchment.

Are we out of baby wipes again?! Sigh.

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There you have it! Don’t forget, you can still be in with a chance of winning an awesome prize…and all you have to do is leave a comment here, or tweet using the #IQBirthday hashtag.

Craig Hallam:

Going with IQ was a no-brainer. Then again, most things are for me. But this, in particular, was an easy decision. Their friendly attitude and Indie Press sensibilities were perfect for Greaveburn. Sara and the IQ gang aren’t afraid to take on a project that’s a little weird, off-the-wall, and with no obvious straight-to-film-ability to it. The other things was their placement. Almost every publisher in the country seems to be based in London. Being a proud Northerner, I wanted to break away from that, and embrace the fantastic Indie Publishing drive that’s going on right now. And now we’re together, and I couldn’t be happier about my decision. The IQ team are a great group of professionals to work with. I can’t wait to start pumping out copies of Greaveburn and meeting readers. But in particular, I can’t wait to see Sara and Peter dressed in their Victorian gear for the Steampunk Convention in September! (Don’t worry, I’ll post photos hehe).

Mark Cantrell

I forget quite how I discovered Inspired Quill but in a sense – you can blame the current Government. Oh, and don’t let those bankers off the hook, either. Without them, it’s unlikely I’d be writing this, but let’s scroll back a bit.

Like most authors, I was pursuing the hard road of corporate publishers and increasingly indifferent agents. I’d been at it years getting exactly nowhere. Then the bankers blew the world economy, Labour was booted out of office, the Tories didn’t quite win the 2010 election and needed a ‘Clegg up’ from the LibDem then the Coalition let rip with its austerity cuts. Suddenly, we were living the backstory to my novel, Citizen Zero – I felt I had to get it out there so I self-published.

That’s where Sara and IQ come in. At the time, it was a review site and I duly submitted by humble novel. It went down rather well. In fact, I quite blushed as I read the review.

Later, after IQ launched as publisher (if memory serves), I was invited to a roundtable discussion on digital v traditional publishing organised by a web hosting company in Manchester. On impulse, I put Sara forward as someone else they might like to invite. She turned up; I listened to what she had to say. In short, I liked her attitude.

So I decided to submit Silas Morlock. After a nerve-wracking wait, psyching myself up to receive the inevitable knock-back, the lass from IQ said yes. And now here we are – it’s all rather exciting isn’t it?

Ben Hennessy

I’m really thrilled to be a part of the Inspired Quill family. As a new author I was delighted when they agreed to publish my debut novel, Queen of the World. Ever since signing the contract back in October last year, they’ve taken great care of me and my manuscript. IQ has been so professional and supportive in regards to editing the book, while also providing information and tools to establish myself online. The fact that they’ve accomplished so much within their first year is really impressive but, having gotten to know them a little better, somewhat unsurprising!

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a publisher – I had an idea of what I wanted, but without actually experiencing it first-hand there was no way to tell how things would play out. Happily, IQ has been there every step of the way. Whether it’s through email, Skype or social media, we’ve been in steady contact through the last few months. They’ve been hugely encouraging about Queen of the World and make me feel as though the novel is something they’re just as excited about as I am. They also operate with complete transparency, providing regular updates on anything involving me or my work. There’s not really much else I could ask for.

May Inspired Quill continue providing quality publishing for many years to come, and I’m looking forward to joining them on their journey.

George Leutermann

What I hope for the future with IQ: my most coherent thought (the presentation thereof being in and of itself no small miracle) for hopes with IQ is that we make roughly eleventy-billion dollars together. More concrete is that it is a manifestation of a simple desire to be a printed, “real” author and playwright. It would be quite an achievement personally as well as professionally, and I would like to thank Sara and the staff of IQ for giving me the opportunity. Usually when Sara and I talk, I am able to espouse limitless faith in our success, speaking from the point of view of the writer, and she assures me that it isn’t roses and champagne from the nuts and bolts perspective of actually getting things done and published. However, her frank, can-do assessment feeds the idea that not only will it be done, but when it is, its success will be beautiful indeed.

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So there you have it! Am I blushing? I promise I didn’t sit behind them all, glowering until they wrote nice things about us. In any case, such kind words simply re-enforce the fact that IQ now has to deliver on the promises we make. I think for the most part, a simple ‘start as we mean to go on’ sort of mantra will work well…but we don’t want to be ‘as good’ as we have been…we want to be bigger and better. (But that’s a whole new post!)

These wonderful authors can all be seen in our ‘Authors’ section of the website. Go and take a look at their bios…maybe follow them on Twitter, and feel free to send them emails, they are actually lovely people. (But don’t tell ‘em I said that!)

Until next time then!

P.S Don’t forget, you still have a couple of days to utilise the #IQBirthday hashtag on twitter, in order to be put into a draw to win a rather spiffing prize!

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Dan’s book ‘Dereliction of Duty’ is currently FREE for 24 hours from Amazon. You can get a copy by following THIS LINK.

For those of you waiting until the paperback is released, you don’t have long to wait! Dereliction of Duty will be available from all major bookshops (including Waterstone’s, WHSmith’s and Barnes&Noble) by the end of next week.

Whilst Inspired Quill takes a little time to work up the breath to blow out the candle (hint: it’s a trick and it relights itself), I’ve been allowed to take over the blog. What I’d like to do is take you a year back in time, so let me fire up my personal time machine (what, you don’t have one of those? How odd) and let’s set the date for 8th April 2011. Now, tuck your elbows in, read the safety information, and let’s be away!

If you would have told me here on the 8th April 2011 that in a year’s time I’d be writing a blog for Inspired Quill’s 1 year anniversary and have had my first volume of poetry published with them, then I’d have said you were mad. That’s the me that was me last April. Not the me that’s here now having travelled back in my time machine. Look, this is all getting a bit confusing, so if you’ll allow me I’d like to jettison the time machine analogy and just talk to you normally, okay? Okay. If you’d have told me that I’d have had a book published by Inspired Quill a year ago I would probably have laughed in your face. This is not because I don’t believe in my work – I do. Maybe two years before that I’d have told you it was all rubbish, but I’ve grown as a writer in that time, and I like to think I’ve got some objectivity about the quality of my work. That said, I still would have laughed in your face.

It’s not that I hadn’t thought about getting published either. I think everyone who writes, whether it’s fiction, poetry, or prose, thinks about one day getting published. For me it always seemed a long way off. I’d never submitted anything to a publishing house, and wasn’t even sure how you would go about submitting to a publishing house, let alone getting them to accept you. It all seemed daunting – you have something they might want, but they have everything that you want. They have all the power.

This is of course one of the great things about Inspired Quill – they use their power wisely. What I mean by that is that whilst they look to take on the best talent and submit the manuscripts they accept to rigorous editing where appropriate, IQ is a friendly and open publisher. I didn’t feel daunted sending in my manuscript. I felt a little anxious, of course, as anyone does when someone looks over their work, but I didn’t at any point feel put off from giving a submission a whirl. That’s a great thing when you’re an unknown voice; after all, it’s not as though new writers don’t have anything to say. Every great writer started somewhere and to a certain extent, I think some publishing houses have forgotten that. Where other companies are less willing to take the “risky” option of a new author because of the uncertainty of a recession economy, Inspired Quill is an remembers that even in a recession, people still need great things to read.

But of course, the openness and honesty doesn’t stop at the submission process. All writers fear the wrath of the red pen – the marginal annotation that tells you that what you spent hours crafted just isn’t good enough. Of course, all writers are their own editors to a certain extent, but we do live in fear of the criticism of the professional editor. Again, with IQ, this fear was soon vanquished. Alright, with poetry there’s not always a lot to edit, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t editing at all and in some ways there’s more riding on individual poems being good – there are less words to make a good impression with for a start. But the editing process was open and honest, just as the submission process was. I think it comes from the heart of the company – Inspired Quill don’t just know what it’s like to be editors and publishers, they know what it is like to be a writer.

So, as the smoke from the trick candle finally blossoms into the air and before we start off with a round of “for he’s a jolly good fellow!”, I’d like to take a moment to say how much I am proud to be one of IQ’s authors, and how much I look forward to watching this company, and its writers with it, develop in the next 12 months. I have little doubt that whilst IQ tries to blow two trick candles out, I’ll be able to say that openness, honesty, and indelible quality are still at the company’s heart.

One day last summer, while spending my school break as a Student Success Services peer-mentor at my New Mexico State University, I happened to send a few of my short stories to a school friend. She emailed me back, writing; “Why aren’t you trying to get published?!?”

I thought about that. Why wasn’t I? I had enough short stories, novels and scripts written to do just that. I’d earned a Bachelors degree in Creative Writing and I was moving into an Interdisciplinary Masters to develop and administer my own online writing programs. Wasn’t getting published a given somewhere in all that?

For me, it wasn’t. I didn’t want to struggle with agents who’d want me to tailor my work to the ‘marketable’ entities out in the world of publishing. My love came from the writing, not the flogging of my work from publishing house to publishing house. Or so I thought.

Online I have a few personae, none of which use E.J. Runyon as a screen name. So my first connection with Sara Jayne Slack was though one of these nom de plumes. She helped me with some website work and later we batted back and forth ideas for a pitch she was giving. She mentioned her goal – Inspired Quill. Even then she had no idea what my actual name was.

Then I learned of Sara Slack’s Inspired Quill, a publishing house, which offers literacy promotion to the community, skills development to authors and quality publishing to readers, among others services. Sara’s baby is a Social Enterprise program and that interested me much more than the idea of publication.

At my reader-friend’s suggestion I sent off my submission without mentioning in my cover letter that we knew each other. And history, which followed, led to Claiming One, my short story collection being published by Inspired Quill this past January.

Would I have submitted if her house hadn’t been a Social Enterprise concern? I doubt it. She offered hands on assistance with two editors I believe in. She readily considered the cover art I had in mind and my input for the layout of the book’s jacket. And she’s provided me with a marking intern.

All with me being a un-agented artist. You may read in the pages of this website what Sara is all about; Her business’ intentions. What the goal of Inspired Quill is. But as a writer, experiencing those claims happening in front of your very eyes is spirit-lifting, to say the least.

I find that her business, like my own, Bridge to Story, is all about the social. My hat’s off to Inspired Quill on it’s first birthday, and to folks like us.

Someone stop me now, please.

IQ had its 1st birthday yesterday – that’s incredible. It’s had an exciting journey so far – one which I’m sure the awesome Sara (and her equally-awesome team) will be talking about on this rather spiffing new website, so I won’t regurgitate something that they will write about far better than I could.

I remember reading about IQ’s launch just at the point where I was about to give up on seeking publication for my manuscript (Fall From Grace). I’d not had any joy with the “Big Six”, nor had I got an agent, and I’d started to feel quite jaded by the entire process – and I’d only had a couple of short stories published before, so could understand why a lot of people gave up. I was a newbie, practically unpublished and fed up.

I almost didn’t send Fall From Grace to IQ. I almost threw my chance away. Thankfully, I was reminded of a saying that I would say to everyone else, but seemed to have forgotten to take on board for myself; “What do you have to lose?”

So I thought “sod it” and sent it off. In all honesty, I didn’t think I would get anywhere; I deliberately keep my hopes low (if not non-existent). As much as you plough on, determined to write the next book and forget about the rejections, they do sit in a tiny, dark corner in the back of your mind and occasionally come out to play at 3 o’clock on a dark and blustery Wednesday morning.

It was an email that banished those thoughts.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was in a local cafe with a friend, putting the world to rights, when my phone beeped. I’ve always cursed connecting my mobile phone to my email accounts – except for that one day. It was from Sara, saying that she wanted to publish Fall From Grace.

Matthew with his copy of FFG

Well, after I’d had an emergency caffine injection and hyper-ventilated into a bag for five minutes, I read it again … and again. In truth, it didn’t properly sink in until I was sat opposite Sara and Peter, who had travelled down to sunny Kent to celebrate Fall From Grace’s launch, holding a copy of the book in my hands and still mildly stunning to have got to this point.

Let me rewind for a moment. I love writing – I’ve always loved writing. My dad was a journalist and both my parents loved writing, so there was always plenty of reading material around. At school, my favourite lesson was English (of course) and I toyed briefly with the thought of being a journalist. That dream ended when I realised that I hated deadlines and stress.

So, by a rather circuitous route, I worked in libraries, a college, a fostering agency, the police, and a few other places before ending up as a customer-facing public servant (By the way, Sara, there’s a book there, I guarantee it – we need to talk!). Throughout most of that time, I wrote – the odd snippet here, the first draft of a book there, etc, etc – because I couldn’t imagine not writing.

For a long time, I just wrote for fun … and then came to the slow realisation that there were people out there who made money out of this – and perhaps I could be one of them. To me, it’s a dream job – the one that I see myself doing for the rest of my career and feeling proud of it.

At the same time, I recognise that it can take a long time to become an overnight success.

Holding that book in my hand for the first time represented the end of a period of hard work for a lot of people (I just wrote the thing – all the work involved in actually getting it published was a work of art in itself) and I was honoured to be the author of the first book published by IQ, in October 2011. More than that, however, was the feeling of just being published – having been accepted by a publishing house, actually getting to the end of that particular journey was awesome. Fellow writers will know exactly the feeling I’m talking about!

So here we are … a year after IQ was founded, and 7 months after its first book was published with more out there and more on the way (I know the titles of a couple of upcoming books, and I can’t wait to read them). It’s weird, you know – we had a big push to getting Fall From Grace “out there” that I hadn’t genuinely thought about what would happen afterwards. I’m actually going out and talking to people … surely there’s a law against then when you’re a writer? Still, the publicity side can be fun.

Happy Birthday, IQ – you’re a breath of fresh air in an industry that desperately needs it. You deserve a lot of successes – I think your future is very bright, and I’m looking forward to being involved with that future!

Inspired Quill the Social Enterprise is a year old!

So to celebrate, all this week the people involved with IQ – from current authors to the interns will all get to ‘dish the dirt’ on the company. As well as a blog-post-a-day, there will be a competition at the end of the week, and for our current authors, you will be able to download a FREE, (1 day only!) kindle edition of our current publications.

So, without further ado, I would like to present the ‘IQ Triumvirate’ (their words, not mine).

[Extra note: Unfortunately, due to some technical difficulties on the blog, this post isn't going to look how it was meant to. I.E. with the pictures embedded properly within the text. Emails have been sent to website developers, and I'm surprise they didn't hear me raging about this yesterday all the way from Fiji. Sorry, guys.]

Sara-Jayne Slack: Managing Director

“This time last year, I was whooping with joy as I got the email from Companies House, telling me that my submission had been accepted. Initially, I had wanted to incorporate IQ on April 1st, for the simple reason that it would serve as a reminder that I should never try and take myself too seriously. My family vetoed that suggestion, but somehow, just the knowledge of this seemed to work.

Did I imagine that the company would already have publications out there and being read? Did I imagine that we would have a small but excellent reputation, or a small army (okay…five…) awesome Interns helping us along? No, not really. I hoped for good things, of course, but I definitely could not have imagined half of what the team have achieved.

I’m still clinging to the title of ‘Youngest Person To Ever Own Their Own Publishing House’ though. I’ve looked and can’t find anything to the contrary, so I’m going to sit here until someone tells me otherwise.”

Peter Stewart: Chief Editor

“It feels very strange to say I’ve been in the Publishing Industry for a year. It feels strange because it’s a total lie. Well. I mean, it has to be, doesn’t it? I can’t have been responsible for the first complete edits of four novels from start to finish (so far), an actual part of the process of publication. That wasn’t me. No, I work part-time at a Walk-In Centre. I do Admin for the NHS. I don’t publish people’s novels. Except, apparently, I do. And that’s such a bizarre thing to say. But it’s extraordinarily exciting, in a subtle, rain-destroys-mountains kind of exciting way.

Inspired Quill is a very unassuming sort of workhouse. We don’t belch out great gouts of obfuscating smoke from our chimneys, or force reams of publications from our Industro-print houses^(tm) in order to turn a profit. But we work, nevertheless. Our existence thus far proves that, whatever it is we’re doing (and if you find out what it is we’re doing, please let me know) we appear to at least be doing some of it right.

We’re not hugely well-published (yet), perhaps not even hugely well-known (yet), but we’re well-received and well-liked, at least I hope. This is something that I see Inspired Quill continuing to be. Indelible Quality is (was?) our perhaps overly-flamboyant tagline, but it is nevertheless true. The strength of the few will outweigh the swarm, of this I have no doubt.

As for myself?  I won’t stop editing novels so long as novels continue to be submitted to us, or until Sara fires me for writing far more than the allotted ‘paragraph’ of text for blog posts. Place your bets.”

Fiona Lorne: Design Manager

“It’s pretty fantastic to be celebrating a first birthday for IQ!  Really does seem like yesterday it was dribbling on itself, then moving on to solid foods…  Wait. Wrong thing.  Anywho, it really is wonderful to be at the year mark, standing here with such fantastic people who have all contributed to the success we’ve managed so far.  It’s been a particular honour working on the book covers so far, bringing author’s babies to visible life.  We’ve got some fantastic things coming up in the works (trust me, you don’t even know the half of it – it’s going to be supremely amazing), and I for one am just so excited about how far Inspired Quill is going to go.  To the authors who are celebrating our first birthday with us: thank you so much for being a part of this endeavor.  To the rest of the triumvirate: let’s see how far we can take this baby!  To future members of our team: where are you already?  If it’s a good thing, it’s time to jump on!  Lastly (but certainly not least, you are our very reason for existing), to the authors who have not yet joined our ranks: we’re waiting for you.  I can’t wait to be a part of bringing your piece to life.  You couldn’t put anything you’ve written in the care of a more passionate, dedicated team.  Thank you for a fantastic first birthday!  Stick around; we’ve got a lot more to do yet.”

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We all hope you’ll stick around to celebrate with us! Each time someone comments on a post this week, or tweets about us (using the #IQBirthday Hashtag) will be entered into a prize draw. So what’re you waiting for? Spread the word!