We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Karin Hoyle. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Karin below.
Karin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Going back to the beginning – how did you come up with the idea in the first place?
Owl’s Nest Publishers came out of many years of dreaming and struggling, failing and succeeding. But it also came out of friendship. To understand how we got here, we need to trace my publishing journey back to the beginning.
I have always wanted to be an author, and in 2008, I wrote my first fantasy novel for teenagers. In 2009, I began the process of pursuing a serious career as an author. Being a young, first-time mother at the time, however—and also a teacher—I found the prospect of querying overwhelming and the process arduous. I also felt unsettled as I tried to find my place in the Young Adult publishing environment as I never seemed to be able to make my stories fit into current market demands and trends. I ended up, from 2009 through 2015, writing and publishing eight novels through a combination of self-publishing and small press publishing, but when my small press publisher went out of business and I found myself without a publishing home, I turned to querying again and acquired an agent in 2017. This was an important step in my career, and also an important step toward founding Owl’s Nest, because being with an agent was both validating and challenging in all new ways. As I navigated the traditional publishing world with my agent (and ultimately failed to secure a traditional book deal), I saw how much of what gets published is a choice of trends, and how much in YA publishing in particular is driven by decisions that have very little to do with what really resonates with authentic teenagers. I saw especially that books for teens who are too old for middle grade and too young for YA—those ages 13-16—struggled to find a home in traditional publishing. And those are the stories I write and have a particular heart for.
In early 2020, after a series of severe professional frustrations, I parted ways with my agent and began talking with my childhood best friend about starting our own publishing house. Katie Stewart and I have known each other since we were children—toddlers, even—and she is not only an avid reader, but an established book reviewer. Known online for founding such things as Middle Grade March (an online read-along of middle grade books), Katie not only sympathized with my publishing struggles as a friend, but she empathized with what I told her about the YA industry and the need for more authentic books for teenagers of all ages—books catering to teens and not the adult women who have flooded the YA readership, changing the market. And this is where our idea for Owl’s Nest Publishers came about. We would start a small press publishing house, traditionally operating, that would exclusively publish fiction that captures the adolescent imagination. The name “Owl’s Nest” comes from the library at our childhood camp, which was a special place to us when we were children and adolescents.
With my years of experience in the publishing industry, editorial development skills, and built-in readership from my long backlist of books—and with Katie’s book marketing know-how and her experience in copy editing and communications—we knew we had the foundations we needed to not only get Owl’s Nest off the ground, but succeed. Making space in the industry for these stories is a vocation for us, and since we’ve opened our doors, we have had it confirmed by so many authors, readers, parents, librarians, and reviewers alike who have thanked us for what we are doing.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Owl’s Nest Publishers is a traditionally operating small press publisher of adolescent literature. This means we accept queries from authors seeking publication for their novels—as long as those novels are written for an adolescent readership. We are happy to accept queries from authors who are agented or unagented, as one of the perks of submitting to a small press publisher is that authors do not need to have found representation in order to be considered. Being “traditionally operating” means that we provide all the services you would expect of a publisher—editing, production, marketing, design, distribution—and pay our authors sales-based royalties. We do not charge for any of our services.
Being small and still a start-up, we are limited in some of our capacities, but we are extremely proud of the quality of the stories we are producing at Owl’s Nest. An Owl’s Nest book is one that will always feel timeless and authentic to the adolescent experience, no matter the genre. We only sign a handful of books a year, and we sign those books knowing that they will be the ones readers will love and see themselves in—and parents, educators, and librarians will love and trust for their young readers. Our story development, editing, and design are top notch, and our marketing department works hard to set us apart from the trend-chasers.
Above all, when choosing which books to publish at Owl’s Nest, we are both story first and reader first. We don’t publish anything that cannot be considered a true, beautiful, and good reflection of the adolescent experience.
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
As a publisher, we have multiple target clientele—or target audiences—to focus on. We have potential authors who might submit queries to us, we have adolescent readers (our primary audience), we have parents (who purchase books for our primary audience), and then we have another set which includes educators, librarians, reviewers, etc. So, it’s a lot of people to target and a lot of potential growth! We can sometimes feel stretched pretty thin.
For the purpose of this question, I’m going to answer for the people purchasing our books. The best way to grow those customers is to meet them in person. This presents its own set of challenges for a company like Owl’s Nest, however, because we operate online, and most of our team is spread all over the continental United States. Getting even a portion of our team together to go to book events to meet people and sell books is pricey and a situation where we have to carefully analyze our return on investment. However, there is no substitute for meeting your potential readers face-to-face. The way to push growth exponentially forward is to go in person, put books into people’s hands, smile, take pictures, and talk with people. I know from long years of experience as an author prior to starting Owl’s Nest that this is not just how you sell a single book; it’s how you create a reader for life.
How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?
Our Marketing Director, Beth Anne Dunphy, does a spectacular job of maintaining communication with our Owl’s Nest followers online, with fostering relationships with book reviewers through email, with seeking out new and potential partnerships and relationships for us, and also with maintaining the Owl’s Nest brand across all our posts. I really can’t speak more highly of her! She keeps the look of everything consistent and makes sure everyone is seen and heard while Katie and I pound away at book production behind the scenes. I should also mention Lindsey Pearce, our Operations Manager, who manages our mailing list and submissions and makes sure our email announcements get drafted and sent out on time. She also has the rather unfortunate task of sending passes to queries (but she also gets to send out good news every now and then!). Basically what I’m saying is, I can’t take credit for this! I have a great team. I recommend everyone surround themselves with good people.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.owlsnestpublishers.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/owlsnestpublishers/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/owlsnestpublishers
Image Credits
Reverie Photography