We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rhonda Penders a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rhonda thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us the backstory behind how you came up with the idea?

In spring of 2006, my writing friend and I were very discouraged at the climate in Publishing. An author had to wait months, sometimes even years to hear back from a query and usually it was with very little feedback. An author was clueless as to why the manuscript didn’t work for a publishinig house. You weren’t supposed to call or email the publishing house to check the status. It was very frustrating. eBooks were just starting to become something and my friend, who was very good with technology said “ebooks are going to be big, we should get involved with this.”. We talked about opening a publishing company and publishing our books and our friends books. We were only going to do it as a hobby.. Six weeks later, we opened up The Wild Rose Press. Fast forward, to today we have over 4,000 active titles and 500 plus authors worldwide. We’ve won multiple awards for being “Best Publisher of the Year”, and we pride ourselves on our open door concept. An author gets a response within 30 days. Authors can email any staff member at any time and get a response. There is no closed doors.

We didn’t start the company to be a company, we thought we would simply publish books for authors we wanted to help. The fact that we happened to begin the company right when epublishing was starting was perfect timing.

Rhonda, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The Wild Rose Press, Inc. www.thewildrosepress.com is a traditional publishing company. We publish in book print and ebook form. We work with adult fiction and young adult and on a limited basis middle grade and picture books. We’ve been in business for over 16 years. Our company is remote and always has been. Our artists and editors are all over the country as well as staff in the UK and in Canada.

While we first opened and focused on romance only, in 2013 we opened our doors to all genres of fiction – including but not limited to science fiction, historical fiction, etc. Authors do not need an agent to submit to us. We pay royalties every quarter.

Our mission statement has always been “a kinder gentler publishing house”. Authors will always receive feedback on every manuscirpt they submit and they will never be treated with anything but respect and kindness. We believe publishing done right is a team between publisher, author and editor. We are extremely author oriented.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I firmly believe that as an owner I have to be the number one person at making sure our company’s reputation is always at the top of our mind. If there is an issue between an author and an editor, if there is a problem with cover art, a problem with the book once its released, ANY problem, I am the one that’s on it. While there are many layers in a company, I firmly believe that as the owner I have to take ownership of the problem and fix it. I will do everything I can to make sure an author is satisifed. I also work hard to make sure my team knows they are trusted, appreciated and I do not micro manage them.

Customers, whether they are authors or readers will make or break you. It is our responsibility as company owners to make sure that within our power everything is a positive experience for both.

We publish good quality products and we work hard to get the word out to our readers that a book they purchase from us is going to be the best it can possibly be.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

In the summer of 2013, Amazon changed their practices and our books were no longer promoted on their site, and even were buried in the algorithms. We lost 80% of our sales in 60 days. It was some pretty dark times after years of doing very well. Fortunately, we never had a lot of company debt or overhead and we were able to get through the rest of that year and then regroup. We cut back on everything we possibly could such as company travel, extra advertising, anything that could be stopped we stopped. As owners, we stopped our own payroll which I firmly believe is always the first thing you need to do as an owner when times get tough. You don’t get paid. It was many years, to be very honest, before my business partner and I were able to take any kind of paycheck again but we got our company through it. We are now in Year 16 which back in 2013 I never believed we would see.

Publishing today is tough. But we still believe in what we do. We believe that authors should have a part in their own publishing journey while also having the backing of a traditional publishing company. We grow authors. That’s what we have always believed and we conitnue to live by this.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thewildrosepress.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewildrosepress/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheWildRosePress
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhonda-penders-465b562a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/wildrosepress
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBAHdaKGpRZPzGnFbLcV-8w
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@thewildrosepress? https://www.pinterest.com/wildrosepress/