Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Gray and Cammie Larsen.
Mary and Cammie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
In 2012, my first literary agent sold my first book to a small publishing house. While I had a great experience with them, my agent soon quit and the former owner of my publisher sold to a larger publishing entity.
Not to be deterred, I wrote a second novel, a young adult gothic romance set during the French Revolution. This novel snagged me my second agent, but she had a hard time finding the right publishing company for me and my story.
Many editors were (and are) looking for diverse books, which we definitely need but they stated that Western European books were over-represented in the publishing industry. I also have a subtle Christian message near the end of the book and many editors said they wouldn’t represent Christian stories. Likewise, Christian publishers wanted cozier books. Mine was too bloody.
Which got me thinking — what if I started my own publishing company? The idea, ambitious as it was, actually terrified me, so I called my critique partner and younger sister, Cammie.
I told her that I felt impressed to start a small press and she said, “That’s what I’ve been wanting to do all along!” Then I remembered how, a couple of years before, she wanted to start a small press but I thought, she was kind of crazy. I always wanted that mark of legitimacy — to be published by Scholastic or HarperCollins. This seemed too risky.
But, I couldn’t shake the idea and every time I prayed about it, I felt like it was something I needed to pursue. So, Cammie and I incorporated the beginning of last year, co-wrote a novel, published a few more of our own books and opened to submissions December 31st, 2017.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It hasn’t been easy. With the invention of Kindle and more and more independent authors publishing their own books without an outside publishing entity, the market has been extremely saturated. It’s difficult to stand out. It can be hard to know where to spend your marketing money. But we’re extremely passionate about our brand, “Edgy, Clean.” We want to find more authors like us—ones who crave dark, creepy or edgier books your traditional Christian publisher wouldn’t take but still have a message of hope or faith.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Monster Ivy Publishing – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
One of the things we’re most excited about is we offer an extremely high royalty rate. Authors get 40% net royalties of all eBook, print and audio sales. They also get a lot of say in things like title, cover, marketing strategy and more attention from the owners of the publishing company.
Our editors also get a much larger cut than what they’d get from other publishing companies. We feel like, whoever does the most work, should be paid. Monster Ivy just gets a sliver of a piece.
We’re also very excited about the future of audio books. I’ve been recording some of my own and have networked with a couple of other fabulous narrators. So many readers and writers want to read books but feel they don’t have the time. Audio means they can multitask and still enjoy a great story.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Our latest news is we just signed our first author — Sara Jo Cluff writing as Jo Cassidy. Her manuscript is fantastic and intrigued us right away. It’s a young adult psychological thriller with a “Bates Motel” vibe. The title is TBA.
Cammie and our other editors are still hungry for more great stories. We want to release three to four other books along with Jo Cassidy’s back-to-back this fall, taking advantage of author cross-promotion and the Halloween season. That time of year, people want edgier things!
We’re also collaborating with an artist for our first graphic novel, which will be an adaptation for the book Cammie and I wrote together, Hush, Now Forget, the first in the Sisters of Bloodcreek series. We love the idea of reaching more readers across as many media as possible — eBooks, print, audio, graphic novel — worldwide.
One of our advantages is my husband and I moved my family out to the country to buy a house for cash so I could spend the time to build this publishing company. Plus, I’m so thankful to be able to work with Cammie, since she has an incredible natural artistic eye. She creates our covers, which is something I could never do.
I also want to note that we don’t charge our authors any fees. Our job is to work for them — send them royalties.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.monsterivy.com
- Instagram: @monsterivypublishing
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/monsterivypublishing/
- Twitter: @monsterivybooks
Image Credit:
Cammie Larsen
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