We are truly grateful to all of you who have wished us well.Your support and enthusiasm for our venture was humbling, and we hope you will not see our company’s disbanding as an indication that any of us doubt the viability of digital publishing. Far to the contrary — if nothing else, we have learned that the future of digital publishing, while overwhelmingly complex, will be bright indeed, and we will each be working toward that bright future via our individual efforts.

My hiring process for the positions has three main steps: a letter of introduction to the position’s duties and pay, an edit of a short partial manuscript along with a critical analysis (for content editors) and an edit of a completed short along with a revision letter (again for content editors). When I first started doing the hiring at my previous position, I didn’t include the first step–the letter of introduction to the position’s duties and pay. I quickly came to realize this letter was a crucial part of the process, because many people aren’t familiar with the business model of digital publishing or with the method of payment generally employed by digital publishers to pay their editors, and many applicants were expecting either an hourly wage, a salary or a high per word pay.

Every digital publisher does pay somewhat differently, but most pay editors via book royalties in some way. Some publishers pay editors only in book royalties, some pay a small fee per book plus royalties, or other variations of these ways. At Quartet, we pay content editors per word edited, payable immediately upon delivery of a completed manuscript, plus a percentage of the book’s royalties, payable quarterly. This allows the editor to be paid promptly for their work, but to also share in the book’s success.

There are pros and cons for both the editor and the publisher to payment in this manner. In the “con” column, it can make it difficult for publisher to attract experienced editors to the position. On the other hand, it makes it an attractive position to new applicants, eager to learn the trade and enthusiastic about helping build the publisher and the author. For the editor who works under this pay structure, especially those who work on a royalty-only basis, with no flat fee or per-word fee, working for royalty-only can be both risky and discouraging for several reasons, including having to wait months to get paid for work performed and little to no pay for publishers/books that have low sales.

On the plus side, the editor enters into a kind of partnership with the publisher and author, invested in acquiring the best manuscripts possible, polishing them to the highest quality, and enthusiastically promoting them. For the editor, this payment arrangement can mean escalating paychecks and a share of each book’s success. Editors who work with successful publishers and authors come to appreciate this arrangement and see the benefit of it.

Publisher who enter into this type of arrangement with their editors do not do so lightly, and reputable publishers revisit the policy periodically as the company grows, to ensure editors continue to be compensated fairly for the time, effort and loyalty shown to the company, and to ensure the payment structure continues to be the best choice for the publisher, editors and authors. At Quartet, one of our goals as a publisher is to grow not just our company, but our editors and authors as well, and that includes re-evaluating and innovating processes as needed.

We realize that this type of payment arrangement is new to many in publishing, though authors, readers and editors familiar with digital publishing will probably have seen this discussed before. We’d like to hear comments from both sides, those who are familiar with this pay structure and those who are new to it. What are your thoughts?

I won’t lie, it’s a big task, and the past few days have been a blur of emails and Word documents as I get the process going. But it’s a task I love, because I’m excited about building the editorial team at Quartet. I love the camaraderie of working with a group of editors who love the books, authors and editing process as much as I do, and I look forward to again working with people who share my obsession with hyphens and commas. If it sounds like I’m describing you, I hope you’ll consider working with us.

As I go through the steps of hiring editors, the main thing I’ll be looking for is skills demonstrated during the testing process. I do look at resumes and/or past experience, but because of the nature of the job, I am most interested in seeing a practical application of skills.

I would like to add, as it’s been asked several times, that one of the beautiful things about digital publishing is its flexibility, and part of that includes the ability to hire contractors from any location. This is a telecommuting position and where you live will not be a factor.

You’ll find the job posting here if you’re interested, but here’s a highlight:

At this time we are searching for motivated individuals interested in working on one to four releases a month as an editor in all genres of romance, women’s fiction, YA, science fiction, fantasy and urban fantasy. Preference for both positions is given to non-authors or to writers not actively seeking publication/pursuing a career in writing, but authors will be considered as well. We are especially seeking editors with interest in working with non-erotic genres such as romantic suspense, historical romance and fantasy, though editors will be asked to acquire and edit across the romance and fantasy genres.

Duties include but are not limited to reading and responding to submissions, contracting books, editing and finalizing manuscripts, communicating with authors, final line editors, other content editors and Quartet press partners about various things such as cover art, excerpts, blurbs, promotion and more. Training and ongoing support will be provided to editorial staff at Quartet Press.

Since we’re launching with our Quench Romance! imprint, we wanted to make sure our submission guidelines reflected what we’re looking for right now. As with the original guidelines, we want romance, and lots of it! We love variety and we love great stories. That part hasn’t changed.

So what’s new?

As you’ll see when you check out the revised guidelines, while Quench is all about romance, we’ve created two sub-imprints. The first focuses on the unusual: steampunk, space cowboys, cyberpunk, science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, and new twists on classic paranormal themes. and new twists on classic paranormal themes. We’re looking for sexy, sweet, adventurous, and unusual, thought not necessarily at the same time.

Our second sub-imprint is Quench Classics. Inspired by a discussion among readers who wanted to buy digital versions of comfort reads and classic romances, Quench Classics is focused on those books readers want to read over and over…and thanks to modern technology, readers can carry a library of favorites with them everywhere they go!

Check out the updated guidelines. Note the gentle comments about sending us a complete query package (ah, the synopsis, such torture to write, such a thing of beauty when it comes to making important decisions about your manuscript!). If you’re looking for specific tips about how to wow us with your cover letter, I quote from Angie’s comments on the Risky Regencies site (hint: lots of good advice and comments throughout the interview and comment thread):

One thing that has always worked to catch my attention in a query letter is just a short line that personalizes it to me, maybe the author reads my blog, has read an interview with me, follows me on twitter. Saying something like, I read in an interview with you on Risky Regencies that you’re especially interested in fantasy romances, so I’m submitting my… Shows that you’ve done your homework and you’re interested in working with me/my press, not just blindly sending out 25 query letters. Other queries have caught my attention in various ways, but it’s almost always something that shows they’re interested in me as an editor/my press specifically.

• Quartet Press Submission Guidelines

Distribution Because we want to make our books available in as many places as possible (so you can price shop and deal with the e-booksellers of your choice), Kat Meyer has been working with over a dozen online booksellers to arrange to have our titles available at their sites. While it sounds relatively simple, each site has different requirements about formatting, minimum numbers of titles, metadata feeds, uploading and reporting, discounts, payment terms and a host of other items.

One of the more interesting things we’ve come across is that certain resellers insist that the books have their preferred DRM to be eligible for sale in their store. We find that odd, since it’s our intellectual property and we’re looking for solutions with those (large) resellers. Some may give; others may not. What we can assure you is that the copies you buy from our own website will be DRM-free and that we’ll push to have as many of our resellers as possible do the same. It’s a philosophical thing for us.

Author Toolbox Along with distribution, Kat’s been working on what we’re calling an Author Toolbox of helpful tips, tools, contacts and marketing wisdom so that our authors won’t have to reinvent the wheel each time a book is released and so that less experienced author/marketers will be able to hit the ground running. While Quartet/Quench will be taking the lead in marketing and publicity, we think it’s critical for authors to promote as well and we want to make it easy for them

Formatting One of the biggest challenges facing ebooks today is the multitude of formats required for the multitude of reading devices currently in or soon-to-be on the market. Kirk, with the help of Liza Daly at Threepress, Joshua Tallent at eBook Architects and others (including “our man in Ireland”) have been addressing format issues to be certain that finished manuscripts turn into attractive books that work on as many devices as possible. We hate that many ebooks don’t flow properly or render poorly and we’re committed to doing better.

The Quench Romance Website Ah, if the walls could talk. Website design is both art and functionality and finding the balance with four hardheads like us, has been quite an adventure. We think we’ve got the content and basic functionality in close to final form and have selected a very versatile and user-friendly e-commerce platform (because we hope you’ll buy from us), but the overall ‘look and feel’ are still very much up for discussion. We want it to make you say WOW, and we’re not yet in agreement on that. Stay tuned.

Title Acquisition, List Planning, Editorial Quality Control Kassia has been furiously reviewing submissions and gradually adding to our initial list and to our schedule of titles to follow the launch. It’s a lot of work (because we’re seeing a lot of good stuff). Now that Angela’s joined us, we expect the pace to pick up dramatically. We can’t tell you when we’ll be announcing the first list because we don’t yet know for sure, but you’ll know as soon as we do, and we hope you’ll agree that whether or not everything on it is exactly to your personal taste, it reflects a unique editorial voice. Another area where Angie’s expertise is being put to use already is building quality control checks throughout the workflow…from author to editor to copyeditor to final page proofs.

Accounting, Finance, Legal Since we last updated, we’ve finalized our Author Agreement (modifying it to remove the ‘option clause’ based on feedback from authors and agents). I’m spending a good chunk of my time building back-end accounting systems with a particular eye toward ensuring that reported sales from our own site as well as those from resellers find their way quickly into our royalty payment stream. Along the way, I’ve learned more than I ever wanted to know about the concept of ‘Nexus’ (not the Henry Miller novel…a nasty little tax concept) and am making sure that bills are paid, procedures are followed, insurance is in place and so on ad nauseam. I’ve also been active making sure the company is adequately funded for both good times and bad (it is).

We could go on (and probably will at a later date) to cover topics including The Great ISBN E-Book Controversy (one per format…really?), metadata management, rights reversion, our great partnership with Firebrand Technologies, the many conferences and panels we’ll be participating in and much more.

Let us know if you want to learn more about any of these topics and we can flesh them out a bit; or if there are things we haven’t talked about yet that you’re interested in, let us know about those, too.

At Quartet, James will be responsible for acquisition and development of titles, as well as management and training of editorial staff.

“Like the rest of the Quartet team, I am so pleased that Angela is joining us,” said Quartet co-founder, Kassia Krozser. “I’ve known her for some time, and have great admiration and respect for her knowledge and talent. I admire her commitment to quality stories and authors. Her vision of digital publishing meshes perfectly with the Quartet Press philosophy, and her focus on the best possible reading experience means she’s always exploring new ways to connect books and readers. She is a leader in the digital publishing industry, both within the world of romance and the wider publishing community.”

A native of North Dakota, James’ career in publishing has included ownership of an independent editorial services business, and a position as a copy editor for the electronic book and small press publisher, Ellora’s Cave.

James was most recently executive editor for Samhain Publishing, where she managed the publisher’s editorial services division, and edited more than 50 authors including national bestselling authors Lucy Monroe, Ilona Andrews and Deidre Knight.

James is a well-known advocate for digital publishing, and frequently travels to regional, national and international writing conferences to meet with authors and present workshops on digital publishing for both authors and readers of all genres of fiction.

About Quartet Press
Quartet Press was founded on shared principles to create a high-quality, community-centric, and reader- and author-friendly digital publishing house. First titles will be available in late Fall 2009 through its Quench Romance imprint, with plans to expand into additional categories and service offerings in the near future.

For additional information on Quartet Press, please visit our website: http://www.quartetpress.com

Media Inquiries: Kat Meyer, VP Marketing. m: 520.576.0482; email: kat {at} quartetpress(.)com

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The other day on Twitter, we announced that we were going to do our darnedest to profile the fantabulous people who work so hard to bring you the latest news and reviews about goings on in the world of romance reading, writing, and raconteuring (actually, we didn’t announce it quite that way, but as I’m feeling all alliterate right now, I am just going to go with it) – ROMANCE BLOGGERS!

So, now it’s my chance to shout out (as loudly as this monitor will allow me to): THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PIPING UP WITH SO MANY WONDERFUL SUGGESTIONS!

Thanks to you guys and gals, we’ve got a bunch of romance bloggers to choose from, and they are no ordinary romance bloggers – they are all STELLAR bloggers with much to recommend them. What’s even more fun, some of the recommenders were actually recommended by other bloggers! – proving yet again just how supportive and generous a community romance bloggers (and twitterers) are.

Also, just from this random group of suggested romance bloggers it’s quite clear that romance knows no national boundaries.  It’s quite exciting – bloggers from Australia, the UK, Switzerland, Canada, and more.

Below I’ve listed the “nominees” so far.  (I apologize in advance if I missed any – and if I did, please let me know.) I’m going to start setting up interviews ASAP with each of these incredible bloggers and we’ll be devoting a special section of our website to “Behind the Blogs.” In all seriousness, these bloggers deserve mucho respect and admiration for the work they do, and we’re going to do our best to give them the attention they deserve.

In the meantime, please please please – add your suggestions about other romance bloggers you’d like to know more about. Use the comments section, or drop us a line via our contact form.

AND, feel free to suggest interview questions. (who wants to hear the same old same old? let us know what you really want to find out about your fave romance bloggers!)

And for now, please take a gander at the suggestions we’ve received so far! Thanks again to each and everyone of the tweeps who took the time to nominate bloggers to be profiled. We greatly appreciate it.

From the TwitterStream:Twitterers tweet their suggestions for the romance bloggers they’d most like to see profiled here at Quartet Press’ blog

@sarahtanner: @avidbookreader @booksmugglers @romancerookie @Leontine1976 @katiebabs @heidenkind @smexybooks @mcvane @jane_l

@CheekyReads: Smart Bitches & Dear Author

@DYockman: @smartbitches! @dearauthor @historicals Dirty Sexy Books – that is a start…will have to see who else!

@susanmpls: @smartbitches and @dearauthor

@jodywallace: Heather Massey from Galaxy Express would make for an interesting profile (romance bloggers); Rebecca at DirtySexyBooks.com also seems pretty funny and interviewable.

@mcvane: Off my head: Gossamer Obsessions; Rip My Bodice; The Galaxy Express; Racy Romance Reviews; Aneca’ss World

@aprilrickard: I love the historical romance authors/bloggers, The Chatelaines

@katiebabs: [who, by the way has recently very cutely "madmenned" her twitter avatar]: def @booksmugglers @kmont @myfriendamy @trelaina

@shilohwalker: @katiebabs even though she has scarred me horribly. @trelaina @bookbinge

@girrlitsbooks [from Down Under!] SarahT + Doc Sarah soo many to choose from how do you pick one blogger? @BookThingo @SuperWendy @redwyne @Karenknowsbest Ell yeah!

@sarahtanner:  @BookThingo @SuperWendy @redwyne @Karenknowsbest

@redwyne:  @bloghappy, @cranberrytarts, @limecello, @jmc_bks, @dogzzz (cindys), @wearedevilcow, @romancerookie @mcvane

1. What were you doing before you became 1/4 of Quartet Press?

KM: I’ve been involved in publishing of one sort or another since graduating from college (University of Arizona – go cats). My first “real” job was as an editorial production coordinator in the Journals Division of Harcourt (at the time, Harcourt, Brace + Jovanovich – though the names started falling off shortly after my arrival there. Hope it wasn’t something I said) in San Diego.

Since those many moons ago, I’ve worked for a number of publishers in Arizona and California, and done a lot of freelance work for a wide assortment of publishers and authors. I have communication in my blood. My dad was a CBS news correspondent turned PR man, my mom was a teacher, and all of my four sisters work in careers that involve sharing information. Some might even accuse us of oversharing, but can we help it if we like to talk?

Most recently I have been consulting with authors, publishers, and the occasional non-bookish client on social media strategies and online marketing. I like Twitter.

2. How do you feel about the over-crowded nature of the romance market? How do you plan to maneuver?

KM: We are approaching publishing as an ecosystem driven by readers, rather than by publisher. We are developing relationships with the reading community, and doing whatever we can to facilitate conversations with them. We want to know what they want to read before we acquire and publish. We want to hear what they’re looking for, what they’re tired of and what they think could be done better. In addition, we are fully invested in providing quality content. We’re devoting a lot of resources to developmental and copy editing, as well as to the formatting and hassle-free distribution of our ebooks and our POD books. We believe readers will come to know Quartet Press as a brand that can be relied upon to deliver a fantastic reading experience.

3. Where did you find these people you are working with? Sure they’re a good-looking group, but why them?

KM: Ah, the wonderful world of Twitter. I was already a big fan of Kassia’s blog, BookSquare.com, and approached her about co-hosting the TOC TweetUp in February. She foolishly agreed, and somewhere along the way, she, Kirk and I ended up on a TOC panel together. I also started noticing Don Linn’s tweets were not to be missed, and we ended up exchanging many direct messages about how we’d do digital publishing if we ruled the world and called the shots. (Be careful what you wish for).

Shortly after SXSW, I found out that Kassia, Kirk and Don were planning to put their money where their mouths were and they invited me to join them. So, basically I was double dog dared into becoming a partner at Quartet.

4. What’s your role at QP?

KM: I am focused on reader relations, sales, marketing, distributor relations, publicity/media relations, and corporate communications. And by focused, I mean overwhelmed but keeping my head above water. It’s a balls-in-the-air proposition for each of us right now, but it seems to be working (knock wood).

5. What’s your favorite thing about starting a brand spanking new company?

KM: If I had to pick one thing it would be getting to work with the fantastic people I am working with (and the readers we are working for). Among the partners at Quartet, we all share a similar outlook on work – it needs to be challenging and, at the end of the day, it needs to be fun. Along those lines, at our founder’s meeting, the four of us agreed upon two basic rules:
1. No Stupid Meetings.
2. No Assholes. (pardon my French).

Let’s see, it’s officially month four, and so far we’ve managed to follow the rules. Sure, I’ve never worked so hard in my life, but I have never enjoyed my work so much.

The other favorite thing? Getting to put our beliefs and ideas about books and the publishing business into practice. We are going into this venture in a beautifully logical way – our goal is to make readers happy. We are building our entire company around that goal, rather than building the business and then trying to get customers to buy into it after the fact. Simple, but hugely exciting.

6. As you’re on the brink of launching a cutting-edge business, are there any wise words from a grandmother, mother or aunt (or whoever) that come to mind to help guide you?

KM: This may not seem like it’s applicable, but my mom has this retort to any complaints about food being too hot or too cold, for instance if you were to take a sip of coffee and burn your tongue, she’d say, “you want it should be cold?”

Every time I start to feel overwhelmed (daily) by the magnitude of what we’re putting together here at Quartet, I think that, “you want it should be cold?” — “you want you should have no exciting company to be building?”

Very wise stuff, that.

(FYI: we are 3/4 of the way through the series. Regular programming will soon return to the Quartet Press blog.)

1. What were you doing before you became 1/4 of Quartet Press?

DL: I’ve had a long and varied career—hardly the carefully-planned career path that high school guidance counselors laid out for me in 1971 as I headed off to Vanderbilt University. I majored in Economics but spent an inordinate amount of time hanging around the English department, one of the greenhouses of so-called “Southern literature.” While I wound up continuing my business education with an MBA from Harvard, reading has continued to be the great joy in my life (along with my family and certain fried foods).

Upon receiving the MBA, I entered the world of finance as an investment banker, working for twelve years at two major Wall Street firms. I learned (a) how to get things done and (b) what it’s like when your compensation is based entirely on your performance. It instills a certain discipline.

The birth of my two children and the grueling travel schedule of investment banking led me to rethink my priorities and my (then) wife and I made the decision to slow the pace. We moved to a small town in Mississippi where I took on the role of managing partner for her family’s businesses, which included large cotton, catfish, soybean, rice, corn and wheat farms, a catfish processing and marketing plant, a cotton gin, a feed mill, a small bank, a chain of assisted living facilities and some other odds and ends. Yes, that was a change, and you can read more than you probably care to know about it in chapter 19 of Po Bronson’s 2002 book What Should I Do with My Life?. Suffice it to say, my business skills and my ability to adapt to different situations were honed during those fourteen years.

In mid-2001, I faced another “What Should I Do?” moment due to some changes in my personal life. As if by magic, the above-mentioned Po Bronson reappeared, calling to say he was on the board of a book distribution company (Consortium) in St. Paul, Minnesota, that was for sale, and he thought I should buy it. I went to look and thought it was an opportunity to work with some really cool and important independent publishers (City Lights, Akashic, Copper Canyon and New Society, to name only a few), turn it around and make some money. So I bought it, had some success and ended up selling it to Perseus Book Group in 2006.

After knocking around for a few months, I accepted an offer to become senior vice president and publisher at The Taunton Press, a top-quality publisher of hands-on and how-to books, magazines and Web sites. It was a great experience to work with an incredibly talented and generous group of people at Taunton, and we were fortunate enough to produce New York Times bestsellers, James Beard and IACP award winners and category leaders in our target markets.

But I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and I’ve been fascinated with this transitional phase of reading, writing and publishing for some time. So when Kassia, Kat, Kirk and I finally came up with the idea to put Quartet together, it seemed the time was right to make the move.

2. What’s up with romance? Is getting into what seems to be a pretty crowded market really a good idea? Why? Where’d the idea come from? Where is it going?

DL: I’m reminded of Willie Sutton’s famous response when asked why he robbed banks: “Because that’s where the money is.”

I mean that more in the broad sense than strictly the romance genre’s recent sales growth, which itself has been astounding—even in the face of a bad economy. I also consider romance readers and publishers as being on the leading edge of the (non-academic and professional) adoption curve of reading digital books. Since we’re in this as a primary business proposition (rather than as a vanity publisher or an experiment in digital publishing), we chose to start with a genre that has a large and growing audience. While a case might be made that the market is crowded, we expect the quality of our titles, the Quartet discovery-shopping-purchase experience and the fact that we’re offering our books DRM free will make us stand out from the pack.

As for where it’s going, we think the romance genre offers plenty of room to operate in existing and emerging sub-genres, but we also think there are opportunities in other categories, such as mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, and even literary fiction. Anywhere there’s a dedicated, hard-core community of readers is fair game as far as I’m concerned. We also think, because we’re building such a robust back-end system, there are opportunities for us to provide certain services for other independent publishers who’d rather not reinvent the wheel themselves.

3. Where did you find these people you are working with? Sure they’re a good-looking group, but why them?

DL: I first met Kassia (virtually) in 2003 or 2004 because I was a fan of Booksquare.com and commented occasionally on her blog. I thought she was smart and funny, and when she mentioned in one post that she was planning to go to an O’Reilly “Tools of Change” conference in San Jose, I asked her if we could meet for a drink and conversation. She, her husband Kirk and I had a long wandering conversation filled with laughs. My assessment that they were both very smart proved true. We maintained our friendship and sort of danced around the possibility of working on something together. We reconnected at South by Southwest in February and really began to flesh out what that something might be.

As we were kicking around the idea (and realizing we needed a marketing maven as part of the team), we (independently) kept seeing Kat Meyer popping up just about everywhere and determined she would be the perfect fit for what we had in mind. The four of us, after some awkward phone calls, finally met in person at BEA and hammered out the basics of our company and its future.

Why them? They’re all smart and funny. They take the business (but not themselves) seriously. They want to be successful—and not just in some vague publishing sense. Also, they agreed with me that Quartet’s bylaws must include a “no stupid meetings” clause.

4. What’s your role at QP?

DL: As we’re running as fast as we can toward launch, all of us are doing a bit of everything. We like that because it keeps us evenly spread as well as makes sure more than one of us is looking at the various pieces of the puzzle so we don’t overlook anything critical.

That said, if I were to characterize my role, it would be focused on finance, administration and general management, which are the skill sets from my background. But I’m curious (some say nosy) enough that I expect to have a hand in most everything as we ramp up and grow.

5. What’s your favorite thing about starting a brand spanking new company?

DL: There are a lot of things to love about a start-up … the excitement, the camaraderie, the sense of building (rather than just managing) something, but my favorite thing about this particular venture is that we’re not bound by any of the old publishing infrastructure, systems or (not least!) thinking.

We literally were able to begin with a clean sheet of paper and write down what we wanted in systems, in marketing, in content and workflow management and most importantly in the reader and author experience. We really believe we’re at the tipping point for digital publishing, and we have the ability to create and push limits for readers, authors and communities.

6. What is the weirdest reason you’ve purchased a book?

DL: I don’t know how weird it is, but it’s unusual. I have a great love of independent bookstores and their proprietors. When I lived in Mississippi, our closest indie was McCormick’s, in Greenville, MS.

I trusted Hugh McCormick’s taste so much that I had a standing order for him to send me whatever came in that he was excited about for two years. He had about a 95% ‘hit rate” on his choices for me. And this was before I ever thought I’d be in the book business.