Owl Hollow Press

I'm not familiar with them, but here's my .02 after checking out their site:

They only have one book out, an anthology released just this month, and a novel due out next year.

Their page states that they publish "genre fiction, contemporaries, and nonfiction." That's a lot of ground to cover. Most companies seem to do better when they start out focusing on one or two genres.

The staff seem well-meaning and enthusiastic, but their bios don't explicitly state any experience in publishing.

Give this one two years and see how they're doing.

I like that they use Twitter to update when they've read past a given date in the submissions they've received (I take it they read chronologically). That's a smart strategy and saves both writers and publisher a lot of time in follow-up emails.

I notice their staff focus almost exclusively on editing. They're all fairly young, which is great, but I don't see anyone there with much in the way of sales or book marketing experience at all. If considering an offer from them, those would be among the first questions I'd ask and I wouldn't stop asking until I got a satisfactory answer. Degrees in editing are great, but understanding how books move through the trade will make a much bigger difference for the author.

Any updates? Has anyone had any interaction with this publisher?

The one novel coming out this week has a spiffy cover, but the Amazon listing has zero editorial reviews, and there's no Look Inside for the book. The B&N listing for the paperback doesn't have the cover or the cover copy. They seem to depend on their "Flock" of readers to post reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, but the novel coming out this week doesn't have even one Goodreads review, so that approach doesn't appear to be very effective.

I'd wait another year or two to see what their sales are like. At this point, it's too much of a risk, imo.

Without the bare minimum of a 'Look Inside' feature, I'm not interested. I expect that from major publishers as well as serious small presses. Owl Hollow, I *want* to like you. But you need to start respecting your readers with a text sample.

The next step is professional marketing done well before publication.

I want to like them too! Good small presses are wonderful. But they need to meet my expectations for marketing and publicity and distribution, not just pretty covers. (And, well, I'd like to comment on their editing, but without a Look Inside feature, that's right out.)

fwiw, I've emailed them, asking if they pay advances, and what the general range is.

ETA: They say they do pay an advance "in the few hundred dollar range."

Given the range of genres on their submissions page, I would hope they are aiming for bricks-and-mortar presence. That's tough when you've only got a couple of titles out but they can get there if the books are good. The book they are releasing next week is listed as available through Ingram with a standard discount and returnability; this is a good sign as it means that, even though they don't have full distribution yet, there are no barriers to a store ordering a copy for a customer or even deciding to carry it if they want. It takes a lot more than than to get in a meaningful number of stores but it is a good start and one that many new small publishers don't do right.

I would suggest next steps would include getting more editorial reviews and blurbs (ideally in PW and the like, but at least from recognizable authors or industry people).
And as others have pointed out, Look Inside is a key for readers and even booksellers when it comes to a brand new, unfamiliar press (yes, booksellers get a twisted little joy out of using Amazon as a resource, LOL). I don't see any excerpts on their site either, but maybe I didn't look hard enough. In any case, there's no easy way to know if their books are actually polished and edited well, etc without buying one. So I can't really form an opinion one way or another on that.

But the few existing covers range from good to pretty great, the website is navigable and geared to readers. They are off to a slow start which can mean a few things, but it could mean that they really are doing it right by taking their time and giving proper attention to each title. So I err on the side of thinking that's a good sign. (I spent time over the last few days going down the rabbit hole in this subforum of well-intentioned but clueless failed/failing publisher startups, and this one looks like a breath of fresh air compared to those.)

I'm intrigued by their mission and the descriptions on their submissions page. I hope they really are on the right track.

C Alberts said:

They are off to a slow start which can mean a few things, but it could mean that they really are doing it right by taking their time and giving proper attention to each title.

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Except...if they were giving proper time and attention to each title, they would have trade reviews for the book that's being released *tomorrow*. They would make sure that B&N has the cover image and cover copy for the paperback version. They would have excerpts available both on the vendor sites and their own site.

Again, they might learn the ropes over time, but I would caution people against submitting to this place until we can see what their sales are like.

Hello! My Sci-Fi trilogy was recently signed on with Owl Hollow Press in late April. My debut novel, Golden Skies, is projected to be released in the summer of 2018.

I still haven't started the editing process with Owl Hollow yet, but it's only a few weeks away now. In any case, I wanted to bring something to the attention of everyone on this thread - recently Owl Hollow took on an agented author for a YA novel: Del Tero Moon. The author is Darby Karchut, repped by Amanda Rutter at Red Sofa Literary.

https://twitter.com/DarbyKarchut/status/866332590923534337
https://twitter.com/ALRutter/status/860138788290539522

I would take this as a good sign of the company doing well though it can be argued that I am biased haha. Benjamin Thomas attended a book launch party a few weeks ago in Utah and his novel is available in some stores there from what I know. That's all I got.

I'm waiting to see how they do before I consider sending them any novels. If they are going strong in a couple years and the stuff I am querying now still hasn't found a home, then I would try them with it.

I do have a piece of flash fiction in their Dark Magic anthology. They paid me $50 for it, which I was happy with - it came to about .10 per word, but it wasn't an advance against royalties, just a one time payment. I was also happy with the way the promoted the anthology. They sent each author a swag kit (bookmarks and buttons). They have good cover art, good editors, and are pleasant to work with. I will send them another short if I come up with anything that matches one of their calls, but sometimes, publishing a novel with a small press seems like self-publishing but instead of outright paying someone to proof read and make your cover art, they take half, or more than half, of your sales.

I'm always of two minds of small presses. I like the idea in concept but dunno enough about the reality.

The Look Inside feature can take a few days to engage and it's been up for months now (with 22 4 1/2 star average reviews) and excepts are available at their site. I was published in their DARK MAGIC anthology and they gave each author a "full page" tweet about his/her story, so they really work hard at promotion. The editing of my story was terrific--not a lot was required, but they suggested some tweaks and I, too, like their covers. So keep watching them but I say, so far, so good, and agree they need some PW, Kirkus reviews, etc but they don't review every book that is submitted to them.

One of my agency mates is signed with them for a YA fantasy series. (She has books out already with another pub., BTW). She just got a (very nice) Kirkus review, so apparently the pub. is getting some trade reviews now. (As well as taking on more agented authors).

At first glance I got confused, thinking this was Owl House (Homebound), which it is not. I pretty much gulped down their website and came away very impressed. Great staff, good related creds, artwork, attention to detail--is it possible that a fairly new small press is doing everything right? I had to slap myself. If they continue with this pro thrust, they'll be a large, recognizable indie very soon. I think I will give this one a sub. I'm going to alert my agent to them, if she hasn't already run across them.

triceretops said:

At first glance I got confused, thinking this was Owl House (Homebound), which it is not. I pretty much gulped down their website and came away very impressed. Great staff, good related creds, artwork, attention to detail--is it possible that a fairly new small press is doing everything right? I had to slap myself. If they continue with this pro thrust, they'll be a large, recognizable indie very soon. I think I will give this one a sub. I'm going to alert my agent to them, if she hasn't already run across them.

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Yes. I felt the same way, too, when I submitted something to them for their anthology last year.

Yes, the titles are very close. I did sub to this one on Jan, 7th, so there is a wait and see. They prefer everything they want in the body of the email for now.

A very nice request for the full. Sent 1-7, requested 3-17. They have some more perks going for them. I feel safe.

Submitted today and got a nice, personalized rejection 4 hours later.

Yeah, at this stage of the game, I'm just glad I'm getting reverse contact. Period. The number of publisher non-responses is appalling. Gak!

triceretops said:

At first glance I got confused, thinking this was Owl House (Homebound), which it is not. I pretty much gulped down their website and came away very impressed. Great staff, good related creds, artwork, attention to detail--is it possible that a fairly new small press is doing everything right? I had to slap myself. If they continue with this pro thrust, they'll be a large, recognizable indie very soon. I think I will give this one a sub. I'm going to alert my agent to them, if she hasn't already run across them.

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I just came across Owl House (Homebound) and I can't seem to find anything about Homebound or their many subsidiaries around here. Am I missing something?

Stytch said:

I just came across Owl House (Homebound) and I can't seem to find anything about Homebound or their many subsidiaries around here. Am I missing something?

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I can't see them in the index. Why not start a thread on them?

Owl Hollow made it onto my list at the last minute because of this thread, and I submitted earlier this week--I saw no big red flag to keep me from doing so (and still see no big red flag).

Short and sweet rejection 48 hours later.

I had three last minute additions to my list and they all seem to have become fast turn-around responses. It's oddly comforting that the places I was on the fence about (including those three) are the ones saying 'this isn't for us' while the places I subbed that I think might be a great fit are taking a while. For whatever it's worth, that is just oddly comforting to me. Like, from a 'data' perspective.

I just got a great personalized evaluation/rejection. Wasn't so bad. I'm finally narrowing in on the problem with this manuscript.