My ‘Chat’ with Gail Delaney of Desert Breeze Publishing

If there’s one certainty in the current publishing environment, it’s that once a month at least one new electronic publisher will set up shop. It’s a crowded market but every once in awhile one publisher grabs my attention. Desert Breeze Publishing did just that and did it the old fashion way by publishing top notch books that I couldn’t put down. I’d read three of their mystery novels and was intrigued not only by the quality of writing but the high level of editing too. I wanted to find out more about the company so here is my chat with editor in chief and co-owner, Gail Delaney. www.desertbreezepublishing.com

Susan Palmquist( SP)- My favorite question to anyone who starts a business…how did you get the idea?

While there, I was sent artwork for one of my future releases.  The cover was… awful.  I hated it.  I won’t go into which book or why it was horrible, but sufficed to say it was bad.  It wasn’t appropriate for the story, the characters, or my style of writing – and it looked amateur and thrown together. Jenifer, who is a gifted artist, told me I should beg my publisher to allow HER to make my covers.  They refused.  Somewhere through the course of this conversation one of us said “We should just open our own company”.

That was a few years ago.  Since then, the publisher closed their doors and my family and I relocated from New England to California.  At every turn, another door opened leading us in the direction of opening a publishing company of our own. Finally, we both threw up our hands and said “Fine!”  We then began the ‘research’ stage… finding out all we could about opening an e-book publishing house.  We refined what we wanted to be about, and worked out as many kinks as we could before opening our doors.  It took months of preparation, but in the end, it was well worth it.

And now… here we are.

SP-I know you’re closed to submissions until July 2010, but when you do start reading manuscripts again, what will you be looking for?

 GD-I would be excited about seeing a few different genres, the first probably being epic science fiction romance.  I love science fiction and I love romance – so when I can get them both together in the same place, I’m ecstatic.  J I like space operas and character-driven stories with sweeping storylines and elegant arcs to tie the books together.

 I also want suspense, and while my first choice is a contemporary setting, I’ll look at romantic suspense in any setting.  I love the thrill and edge of danger in a good suspense novel.  This can be an individual book or a series. I recently read an article that said 20^th Century Historicals would be the next big thing… but I’ve been saying that for a couple years now, and have said since opening DBP that I’d love to see some historical fiction set in the first half or so of the 20^th century.  Novels set around any of the major conflicts of the 20^th century, novels intricately woven through the era of the Great Depression… anything along those lines.

SP-What are common problems you’ve seen with submissions?

 GD-Two things… first, not thoroughly reading our submissions page to understand just what it is we publish and what we’re looking for.  Second, not sending me a book that is polished and edited within an inch of its life. 

Of course, if you send me a manuscript that doesn’t meet our guidelines, which in the most basic of terms would be a fictional romance novel that is not erotica or erotic romance, then I will reject the submission.

Equally, if you send me a novel that has a wonderful concept that meets our guidelines, but your manuscript is riddled with problems – i.e:  head hopping, passive voice, poor grammar, etc – I will most likely reject the submission.  I have been known to take on a book that needs extensive editing because I see the potential of the book itself, but don’t bet on that getting you in the door.  Time is a precious commodity, and generally speaking, I need to sign books that are well written, well planned, and well executed.

 I will not reject your manuscript for not being formatted as I state on the website… but it’s got to be well written. 

SP-Any particular Desert Breeze titles you’d recommend writers read to get a feel for what you’re looking for?

GD-Oh, wow… that’s a tough one.  I’m exceptionally proud of all the books we offer and really feel we’ve gathered some of the best authors in their particular genres. I guess you’d have to look at each category.  For instance, for Inspirational Romance I’d say read either Deborah Kinnard, Michelle Levigne or Michelle Sutton.  J. Morgan writes great humorous novels with a paranormal twist.  In Science Fiction, read P.I. Barrington, Vijaya Schartz or myself.  And in suspense, Melanie Atkins is just chilling.  If you like a wonderfully sweet and outstandingly hilarious read, then you’ve got to read Sandra Sookoo.  She’s wonderful. 

 Warm novels would involve more heated kisses and embraces.  Physical intimacy may or may not occur in the book, but if it does it ‘goes to the door’ and no further.  Firmly shut that door and let the reader’s imagination go from there.

 Sensual novels have a higher level of intensity in the physical contact.  Kisses are intense, physical contact more frequent and with high sexuality and sensuality in its intensity.  If physical intimacy occurs, it will be ‘on the page’ but not in extensive detail – leaving the description more to implication rather than detail.  But… no purple prose.

Finally, the Intense rating would imply a much higher level of physical need, intense sexuality and more mature themes.  However, scenes of physical intimacy will be appropriate to the story and characters and will never be gratuitous in nature.  Many of our intense novels may have one detailed love scene, with the implication of others that go behind that proverbial door.  Descriptions will be more detailed than the Sensual rating, but always tasteful and never using terms and descriptions common to erotica or erotic romance.

I’ve actually never rejected a book for sexual detail unless the author clearly states their book is intended to be erotic in nature (usually because they haven’t read the guidelines).  What I will reject a book for is if the plot of the book is intricately tied to sex.  The book shouldn’t be about sex, about getting sex, about how sex is so important to the arc of the story that it couldn’t exist without it. 

 I’ve had numerous cases where I’ve enjoyed the book, but found the sex scenes to go a little further than I felt was necessary or appropriate for the rest of the novel – and for our guidelines.  In those cases, I’ve contacted the author and explained that while I’m interested in the book, I would ask for changes to those scenes should they accept a contract.  I would say that 95% of the time the author has been more than willing to make the necessary adjustments.  In fact, in most cases, the author tells me that they only put that much detail in the book because they felt it was necessary in the current market environment and they weren’t comfortable with it themselves. 

GD-Over the next year, we are going to focus on expanding our catalog size by slowly increasing the quantity of books we release each month.  We are also going to be offering our novels at several outlets to best offer our books to as many readers as possible.  We are already at Amazon for the Kindle, but soon we will also be at Barnes and Noble for those readers with The Nook (myself included!) and I hope to be at several other sites in the near future.  Further ahead, we are considering options for growth such as going to print and expanding our offerings to include mainstream novels.  But, that is further down the road.