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

I’m not sure when it started, or if it’s been there all along. I certainly can’t remember a time when my goal in life wasn’t to write. I certainly started putting pen to paper at an early age, even going so far as to start writing my first novel when I was fourteen. If you’re interested, it was about a jester called Malcolm and his talking funny-stick, saving a seaside town from impending doom at the hands of a Kraken. There was something to do with a giant tuning fork on the cliff tops that he had to ring in order to lull the leviathan to sleep again. That little project got to about four pages long before I gave up.

But it was a start, if not a good one.

I’ve always been an avid reader, and far more interested in the worlds that could be created rather than the one I was living in. My geography teacher once noted to my mother at parents’ evening that I wasn’t particularly interested in how a volcano might be formed, but more what it would be like to actually be there. That about sums up my formal education in a nutshell.

Suffice to say, I always loved the creative writing aspects of English as a subject, and wasn’t really bothered about the literary commentary. My teachers must have hated me. My creative writing homework was always a couple of thousand words over the limit, for example. I remember having an argument with my GCSE teacher about whether I meant ‘permeated’ of ‘perforated’ in a piece of work. It was the latter. But we argued for about fifteen minutes before she demanded I change it. Now I think about it, that was probably my first interaction with an editor. Kooky.

But the writing took a back seat. I grew up (only a little bit) and realised that there was no money to be made in writing for a sixteen year old, and my friends all had jobs and hence had fun. I had to get one of those pesky things, too. Long story short, I got a job as a Nursing Assistant which led me into studying Nursing at University. But even throughout that, the writing bug still nibbled at my brain. And somewhere in that course of studying Biology and Sociology and any other Ologies they threw at us, I started writing my first novel. Really this time.

That book became known as Beyond Tor, and was the greatest learning experience in my life. My first lesson…that I was crap. The book was terrible. It still skulks on my hard drive, but it’ll never see the light of day. However, by the end of that novel, not only had I proven to myself that I could write a novel, but the ending was noticeably better than the start. That meant I could get better, too. And so there came a sequel, Haven. And that was a lot better, albeit still a fair bit of a work in progress. By this point, I was determined to write something good. And so I ingested books about writing. After three or four, I realised that they all said pretty much the same thing and went back to the first one. Until I read Stephen King’s On Writing, which I won’t bash on about, but was a great eye opener. Not only did it chronicle the progress of one of my favourite authors but, as it turns out, he was pretty rubbish when started out, too. He even thought his first book was terrible and threw it away (That was Carrie, by the way). While Beyond Tor was no Carrie, I was given a little hope.

Thanks so much for reading. You can read more of Craig’s journey here next week. Please do feel free to post any questions for the author in the comments box below

You can find Craig’s page here: http://craighallam.wordpress.com/

And Lea’s here: http://leatierney.wordpress.com/

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.

———-

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.

———-

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.

———-

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!