The Publishing Performance Show

Nick Courtright - How a Hybrid Publishing Partnership Works with Atmosphere Press CEO

• Teddy Smith • Episode 44

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Nick Courtright, CEO and founder of Atmosphere Press, brings his background as a PhD in literature and published author to hybrid publishing. Through Atmosphere Press, he has developed a transparent, author-focused approach that combines the best elements of traditional and self-publishing.

In this episode:

  • Evolution of hybrid publishing models
  • Manuscript selection process
  • Editorial and design services
  • Marketing and publicity support
  • Author collaboration approach
  • Building successful publishing partnerships


Resources mentioned:


Book Recommendation: 

  • "How to Monetize Despair" by Lisa Matolo


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[00:00:00] Hybrid publishing has become really popular in the last few years because you get some of the best aspects of both publishing and self publishing. You pay a small amount up front to get help from the experts and they'll get your book in front of a huge audience, but you still manage to keep the copyright yourself, which gives you some of the advantages and the royalties of self publishing.

[00:00:26] So in this episode, we're speaking to the CEO and founder of Atmosphere Press, Nick Courtright, who is the absolute expert. And I've been asking Nick to come on the show for a while now, so I was super happy to get him to come on. He is one of the most interesting people to speak to in this world of hybrid publishing.

[00:00:42] So I think if you are interested in doing hybrid publishing or just learning a bit about how it works and some of the, Pros and cons. Then this is the show for you. Hi everyone and welcome to the publishing performance show. I'm here with Nick Courtright, who's the founder and the CEO of Atmosphere Press, which is a hybrid publishers.

[00:00:59] And we're going to find out all about what that means during the show. He's also a PhD in literature and he's the writer of four books, which is published. So thank you, Nick, for joining our show. Glad to be here. Thank you. So yes, a hybrid publishing. So why don't you tell me a little bit about what hybrid publishing is and exactly how atmosphere press works within the publishing world?

[00:01:20] Yeah. So hybrid publishing is a relatively new term. It's only been around for less than a decade and sort of any sort of popular parlance, but it's definitely something where still a lot of people don't really know what it is. They don't understand it. So. The way that I think it's helpful to think about it is sort of a good hybrid publisher is 1.

[00:01:40] that's going to try to take the best of both worlds of self publishing and traditional publishing. So on traditional publishing, some of the best parts of it are that, you know, you get to work with a professional team. You have a label. There's legitimacy behind it. There's selectivity. There are quality standards.

[00:01:58] The bad parts are that, you know, they'll take your rights, you know, you might not have a lot of control over the work and then on self publishing side. The best parts about that are that you keep your rights. You have more autonomy. You have more control over how the book turns out. But the bad sides are quality control issues, you know, a perceived lack of legitimacy is a possible issue things like that.

[00:02:22] So, hybrid publishing, we try to take just the good parts on each of those polls while getting rid of the bad parts on each of those polls. So, at atmosphere. Authors maintain their rights to their work. They have a high level of autonomy, you know, working through the process, but they are working with professionals throughout the journey to publish their book, getting editorial services, design services, but more in line with the author's personal aesthetic with their personal needs.

[00:02:54] And then also sort of being able to, you know, leverage our connections and our experience as a brand name in the publishing space. Right. Okay. So it kind of takes some of the, it basically takes some elements of each one to create maybe a bit more of a personalized experience for some of the writers.

[00:03:12] Yeah, absolutely. And they're in hybrid publishers will run the gamut, you know, like some of them are. You know, closer to the traditional publishing side of the ones are closer to the self publishing side. And, you know, some of them, not all of them will let you keep your rights. For example not all of them will give you a great royalties share some of them cost more than others because there is an author investment component to hybrid publishing.

[00:03:38] So I always just advise people to, you know, do your research, you know, look at what different places have, you know, at atmosphere. For example, we have our contract is actually publicly available on our website. I don't know anywhere else does that, but we want people to be able to really look through, understand what they're getting, understand that they're getting 90 percent of their royalties that they have.

[00:04:01] Yeah. The rights to their derivatives and like a clear understanding of what the publisher is actually going to be doing to serve the author and their book. Yeah. Great. Cause I think there's sometimes there is a bit of confusion when some people don't know exactly what publishers roles are going to be and exactly what the responsibilities for the writer and also the publisher are.

[00:04:21] So that's great. That is so transparent. what was it that actually inspired you to start atmosphere press because we'll come into some of the more details about exactly the difference between hybrid and versus regular publishing or even self publishing later. But what was it that made you want to start atmosphere press in the first place?

[00:04:36] And what was your vision for it? Yeah, so it's, it's interesting. I could try to concoct some sort of story about how I'm like an entrepreneur who had a bolt of lightning sort of thought. But really, I was just a college English professor. I was teaching creative writing. I was teaching literature. I was teaching a bunch of horrible, you know, freshman composition classes.

[00:04:58] I, but I did a little bit of writing coaching on the side. This was back in 2013, 2014. And I was doing writing coaching, helping authors with their books and then in 2015, I had an author who, you know, he wanted help publishing his book and I was like, I had some small press experience just from, you know, having been a published author myself.

[00:05:24] And I thought, oh, well, I'll help him publish his book. He didn't want to self publish. He didn't want to wait years and years and years to potentially be able to have a traditional publisher. So, his book was about the universe and the meaning of life. So I started thinking of press names and I was like, oh, cosmos books and it's no, that's not it.

[00:05:46] That's too dorky and thought about various possible press names to put this book out and then boom atmosphere press popped into mind. I, the domain name was available and that became the 1st atmosphere press book. Uh, and then after that, another author needed help and then another and another and another.

[00:06:07] And now here we are 9 years later, and we've published about 1200 books. Oh, my God. Wow. So it's it's crazy how, you know, there wasn't necessarily a big sort of vision. It just kind of happened, but 1 thing that I knew from the start from the 1st time I actually, you know, bought that domain name and put a website up there is that atmosphere was going to be dedicated to, you know, honesty, transparency, kindness, professionalism author rights was going to be really, really forward in it because at that time, like, nobody really knew what hybrid publishing was.

[00:06:47] You know, but people knew that a lot of traditional publishing wasn't very beneficial for author rights. And I knew that we wanted to be in opposition to that. So, yeah, right from the beginning, I knew that much, but all the rest of it sort of. Came over the course of years as ultimately I left academia and left teaching and sort of went all in on this and started trying to build a team that matched those values.

[00:07:12] And now here we are. Yeah. So the gap in the market you saw wasn't really around. Necessarily a completely new idea is more about improving what was there and being really transparent with people about how they can, you know, publish their books and make sure that it's, uh, they know exactly what they're getting into before they start.

[00:07:29] Yeah. And like, I was honestly, like, I was surprised that there was a mark, you know, like I didn't, I didn't know that. Like I, you know, I had no sort of oh, I see a gap in the market. We're going to try to fill it. I mean, I was. Doing literary analysis, you know, so that was not on my radar at all. But then once I started putting this out there, it became like, very clear that there was a market and that it wasn't, you know, self publishing.

[00:08:00] It wasn't people who just wanted to self publish. It was people who wanted to work with professionals. They wanted a unified team. They wanted, you know, everybody to be sort of pulling on the same side of the rope and having sort of some of those benefits of traditional publishing, but they still wanted to keep control.

[00:08:20] And, you know, once I started putting it out there, people started finding us and, you know, I guess the market was there all along and sort of had an Wander into it. So most of your authors is it mostly their first time book or most of them coming back for maybe their second book? We have a lot of repeat authors who work with us for multiple books.

[00:08:42] That's a big thing that we're super proud of is that we sort of view ourselves as a lifetime. You know, even if we only publish one book, it's once you publish a book with a publisher, if it's a good relationship you know, a book lasts forever, ideally, right? I, so, and we do work with a lot of repeating authors, and we do work with a lot of authors who have published before both people who self published before, and they found the experience to be a little hollow because you're all alone.

[00:09:12] Yeah, whereas with us, we try to foster community or people who had published previously, we published a lot of people who had, you know, big time, you know, academic publications at places like Rutledge and Oxford. We've published. Authors who have published with, you know, Harper Collins and Penguin Random House in the past, and they wanted a publishing experience where they weren't just part of a corporate machine, where they were going to be more involved in it.

[00:09:40] So, you know, and then of course, lots of people who this is, this is their first book. This is their pride and joy that they've been working on for years. And, you know, they come to us to help see it through. Yep, definitely. So there are there like any particular types of books that you usually want to have as atmosphere press.

[00:09:59] And by that, I mean, like, are there particular types particular categories or any particular niches that you want to get into your, uh, into atmosphere? Yeah. So typically, you know, we do publish pretty widely. So we don't have oh, this is the only genre that we serve, right? Yeah. So we do publish a lot of memoir.

[00:10:18] We publish a lot of fiction, like a lot of novels. You know, my background is as a poet, several of the other, you know, key members of our team have backgrounds in poet poetry. So we're very like literary, you know, we like the literary. You know, sort of angle of things I, so we do some, you know, like, you know, like your business self help kind of book.

[00:10:40] But that's more of a minority. We're sort of like, more in on, you know, things that are going to sort of push the envelope and in a literary kind of way, we do a good number of children's books also. And those tend to be among the best sellers. I, so, yeah, in terms of. You know, the types of books that we're looking for, you know, it's more, it's less about the type of book that we're looking for and more about the type of author who we're looking for because we want somebody who's, you know, going to sort of have the right spirit to engage in a collaborative relationship.

[00:11:16] Yeah. Cause you are quite selective. I think about the people you take on, you don't just take on everyone. You make people go through a process. So what are those? Absolutely. Yeah. What is that acceptance criteria? Do you, and you know, what would people need to do in order to make sure they had the best chance of being successful with you?

[00:11:31] Yeah. So we do have a acceptance standards, like we're not a vanity press. We're not a place. We're not a self publishing place where it's like, Oh, come one, come all, we'll just like throw your book out there. Like every book that we work on says atmosphere press on it. Right. We do have a rather clear cut, like four questions.

[00:11:52] That we have to ask ourselves when investigating whether a book is going to be a good partner for us. So 2 of those questions, the answer must be yes. And those 2 questions are, will this be a mutually beneficial relationship? Are both sides, the author and the team going to benefit from this relationship and enjoy working with each other?

[00:12:12] Because that's very important and then the other 1 that must be, yes, is will our process be a good fit for the book? Right? If it's something where it's like, this book is going to need things that we're not really able to provide. We don't want to sign that book on. It's not going to be a good fit for us.

[00:12:28] You don't want to disappoint the author. Right? And then we have a couple of questions. I, where the answer must be no, and that's whether the book will cause harm to readers, or whether the book will cause harm to atmosphere. So we don't want to publish things that are hateful, misogynistic, sexist. And we also, of course, whether it's going to cause harm to the press as a whole.

[00:12:50] Does take into account the larger broader question of quality, right? So if the book is super poorly written Like we can't publish it because we do publish people who have very high profiles and we can't like damage the brand name and therefore damage their reputation So all of those things sort of seek to you know, raise the game On you know the types of books that we're willing to work with You While also not being, you know, super unduly exclusionary we don't want to be like a traditional press where they just.

[00:13:25] They look down on authors, right? They're like, we get 10, 000 submissions and we take 2 and it's only if you have. You know, a million followers on it's that's not who we are, right? Like, we want to be of service to the writing community. So there is sort of a give and take there. But I think that.

[00:13:46] You know, having those standards in place, you know, makes a big difference and keeping quality up and making sure that we're working with the right types of folks and that those folks are getting the most out of the relationship with us. Yeah, nice. Now, with the actual application process, is that does the proposal, is it very similar to a proposal to one of the normal publishing houses, or do you have a different approach that you take when accepting manuscripts?

[00:14:12] Yeah, it's, it's quite similar. One of the differences is that rather than just asking for a query, we usually appreciate having a full manuscript because we get a lot of submissions from people who have only written like a very small amount, right? When you say query, sorry, what'd you mean? Uh, like they'll just be like, send us a sample, send us like a cover letter in like a 10 page sample or five page sample or send us like the first three pages.

[00:14:39] Like, we're more likely we want to see the whole thing right? Because a proposal doesn't really do us a heck of a lot of good, you know, like, our process relies on, you know, the author actually being a writer. Right? Not just somebody with an idea, but somebody who's. You know, put the time in to actually write the book.

[00:14:58] But otherwise, yeah, you don't need an agent, right? You can just go to atmosphere. com and we just have right there, like, submit your manuscript. If you would like it to be considered by us and unlike, you know, many agents or traditional publishers, we will not. Take 6 months or a year to respond. I really try to really prioritize response just in part of the whole theme of, you know, author rights and benefiting authors.

[00:15:26] We want to be responsive. We want to let people know whether they're going to be a good fit for us. So if somebody makes it through initial review, then we. You know, ask them some more questions about what they want, what they need the history of the project more about it. And then if, you know, it sort of passes that stage, then we invite them to have a phone call with 1 of our acquisitions members acquisitions editors.

[00:15:53] and then it's just a collaborative conversation, you know, sort of discussing whether it's going to be a good fit, what it would be like answering the author's questions. And sort of taking it from there and one thing, if, you know, if it's not a great fit for the author, you know, we are going to try to help that author find what is a great fit for them.

[00:16:13] You know, cause we do want to be of service to writers, even if their destiny isn't ultimately to work with us. Yeah, no, of course that is very interesting because I know a lot of people are just very cutthroat and just saying that don't even respond to the email. Sometimes, you know, it's just, that's just not going to happen.

[00:16:29] Um, so it's great to get that feedback. Just before the call, we were talking about advertising and, you know, it's one of the services that you actually provide for the authors that are under Atmosphere Press. So if you're doing hybrid services, would you be doing, and can some of the authors maybe pick and choose parts of the services you provide, or is it a case of, here's my package?

[00:16:50] You kind of take that on or you don't take it on. Yeah, that's a great question. So, we have three main packages that we offer authors and one of the biggest distinguished Features between the, the 3 packages is the amount of publicity support, right? So sort of, you know, a lot of hybrid publishers actually don't do much publicity at all.

[00:17:12] Like, they're just publishing the book. They're putting the book out in the world and that's all they're doing. Right. But with us throughout the journey we do editorial meetings. We do all the design. We, like, work through all of this with you. And right from the moment somebody signs on with us, we're doing publicity coaching literally 1 of the 1st emails that they get that an author gets from us is hey, you might not want to think about promotions yet, but here's some things to think about. Right. Okay. Help them, you know, try to set up a mailing list and you know, build a profile, you know, sort of. I brew up some anticipation and then when the book is ultimately out there's a whole suite of things that we can do from paid advertising for the author landing them interviews and podcasts, uh, you know, getting them professional objective reviews for their book.

[00:18:05] I, you know. Yeah, doing award submissions for the book. That's another like big piece of things hosting readings for the author. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that we can do because we are a press that is different than a self published author where they're sort of a lone ranger out in the world trying to figure this out.

[00:18:27] Right. Yeah. Cause that's good because when. A lot of authors who may be doing it for themselves, you've got to do all of those different parts yourself obviously. You know, you've got to do your own advertising, your own PR, building your brand. I was speaking to Isabel Knight a few weeks ago about building your brand online.

[00:18:41] It was a really interesting chat because a lot of authors just think they have these books written and they can kind of just hope for those sales to come in and it's really not going to happen. But when, With a lot of publishers, they don't really help the authors of that side of it. They kind of take it on and then don't necessarily do the extra work to help the coaching.

[00:19:00] So especially like with their public coaching and how they're perceived and their brands online. So is that something you do a lot of that coaching and helping them to improve their online presence? Yeah. And that's something that, you know, we do take a lot of pride in. We think it's a big differentiator for us because like I mentioned, like a lot of hybrid presses in a lot of traditional presses don't really do that.

[00:19:21] Like when you sign on with a traditional press, a lot of times they're going to be like, who are you hiring as your publicist? Right? They're not doing it for you. And for years, like we at atmosphere didn't, yeah. Really touch the publicity side we were just a publisher right? So, from 2015 until like, 2020, 2021, like, we didn't really do a lot of the promotional side of things.

[00:19:46] And then we started, you know. Having it sort of as a side thing where it's like, you publish with us and then you can get additional publicity support if you want. And now it's just really baked into the whole process with us. And that's something that we're very proud of because we do, you know, want authors to have success out in the world as authors.

[00:20:09] I, and they're going to, of course, be more likely to continue working with us to send us referrals, you know, if they're going to be successful and, like, feeling great about their experience as an author, because the last thing we want is the books just published and then it's crickets. Right? We want them to be able to reap the dividends of of being an author.

[00:20:30] Right. Okay. So once I say, I submit a manuscript to you and it's like, you accept it. What would be the next step? What would be the work you'd be doing and what would be the work you'd be expected from me? Yeah. So right from the get go, you know, we're going to match you up with a developmental editor. That's another thing that we do that a lot of presses, both traditional hybrid and most self publishing firms do not do.

[00:20:55] I, you know, we match you up with a developmental editor who's going to go through the book with you have multiple meetings with you talking through it, trying to make sure you're refining the end that your characters are development are developed that, you know, the big picture of it is really coming together.

[00:21:10] The structure is working that you've got the right title, you know. and while that's happening, we'll also match you up with our art director who, you know, will. Our cover design that's something that we're really proud of because we have, like, very, very talented team of cover designers.

[00:21:28] And we also really, really work hard to try to come up with something that's going to work with the author's personal aesthetic because we really believe that the author should love the cover of their book. Uh, so we ask the author a lot of questions, uh, including having them send over book covers that they really like because that helps us sort of become attuned to what the author is going to be drawn to visually themselves.

[00:21:56] So, we try to find what is going to be professional, what's going to, like, work really well as a cover for a marketplace while also being aligned with what the author wants. And then from there, you know, proofreading interior layout and design, which is always like much more complicated than authors think it will be.

[00:22:15] Uh, and then of course, you know, onwards towards, you know, getting the proof copy of the book and into, you know, publicity strategizing and all of that good stuff. Yeah. And what would you expect from me as an author once we sort of agreed to start working together? Yeah, I mean, participation. Right. You know, like, it's not a thing where, you know, you're just sort of like, okay, I signed up.

[00:22:39] Here's my book. Like, now make it happen. It's like, it doesn't work like that. Like, you need to show up to the editorial meetings. You need to send in the book covers that you like. Like, we'll give you some samples. We'll give you places to choose book covers from. We're going to help you through this.

[00:22:55] But you need to participate. It is a collaborative relationship. And that's the way that you're going to get the book that you really want, you know, is by participating in this process working through it step by step and it is a relationship that you need to embark on. And that's 1 reason why, with a lot of our authors, we, we do become very close to them.

[00:23:17] We know what their children's names are when their birthday is we know how freaked out they are when their book is about to be published. So. You know, it is, you know, a thing where, you know, both sides are engaging in a marriage of sorts. Yeah, that's, that's very good. Is there any difference between the way it works with fiction or nonfiction or is it exactly the same process?

[00:23:43] It's pretty much the same process. There's no huge distinction between, you know, fiction or nonfiction. The biggest 1, of course, is just the editor that we're going to match you up with, because we do have development editors who are set for, oh, this is our developmental editor who does memo. This is our developmental editor who's really great with sci fi and fantasy.

[00:24:04] This is our developmental editor who is, you know, going to be great with poetry. This is the 1 who we send our, you know, business books or self help books to. So those experiences can be, you know, quite different. And then obviously, like, the design requirements for a novel often are rather, you know, relaxed compared to a nonfiction book where there might be, like, a chapter and then a heading and then a subheading and then a sidebar and then a pull quote.

[00:24:33] And then there's pictures and there's charts. So, that can definitely get pretty crazy on the nonfiction side. But really like for the most part it's a rather like similar steps, but we just sort of cater it to the books, particular needs. Yeah. And are there any particular are there any particular authors you've worked with or any particular success stories that you think this really shows off what exactly what we do really well?

[00:25:00] Yeah, I think there are, there are definitely some, you know, big wins out there. So, we have a children's book author Dennis Matthew, who's published multiple books with us. He's sold more than a hundred thousand copies. Wow. So he's like out there, he's doing readings at schools. He's probably at a school reading a book in front of that room full of students right now.

[00:25:21] So he does a lot of that. So that's been something that's been great. I, we have an author. Sorry, just on that point with that author, would you help him with the illustrations and things like that as well? Or is that something he would also bring to the table?

[00:25:34] Yeah, yeah, we actually do have illustrators who we have sort of, you know, partnerships with. Yeah, so we've got a list of, I think, about a dozen illustrators who we've worked with who we, like, officially. Approve and we know do good work So we work with a good number of children's books authors who you know, they come with their own illustrator They've illustrated it themselves Like we're able to accommodate that but then ones if they need help like getting an illustrator We have ones I that we can like have them choose from so yeah, because that obviously for a children's book is is a pretty, you know monumental part of the process Yeah Yeah, of course and what so you were just sharing some other of the case studies as well Yeah, so another 1 is, we actually, you know, published a book called Southern gay teacher, which was by an author named Randy fair, who he had been, you know, a homosexual teaching in the South for years.

[00:26:33] Right? And he wrote a memoir about this experience. And he had been shopping this thing. This is the type of story that I love is that he had been trying to get this book out there for a long time. He had just gotten no bites on it. It's it's insane, you know, because if a traditional publisher, like, doesn't think that there's a market.

[00:26:56] You know, where there's some issue with the book, or you don't have a huge following they're just going to reject you outright, you know, so 1 of the issues with this book when it came to us is it was too long. It was like, 600 pages long or something. So, like, we helped him through editorial, trim the book down.

[00:27:13] And then when the book came out, it was kind of a small sensation. You know, like, he, you know, started doing speaking events at, like, big conferences sort of became like a trusted voice in that community and in the larger, like, educational world as to like, how to navigate this in a hostile environment.

[00:27:34] So that was another 1 that was, 1 that we're really proud of. Then there's Terry Brown, who's publisher who writes historical fiction. We're currently right now working on our 3rd book with her and both of her previous books are have 1, just a bajillion different awards and receive started reviews, got a lot of recognition.

[00:27:56] And really that's just the beginning. There are, like. You know, countless stories of, you know, authors going out, going on book tours, like readings, selling books, making connections, you know, and because the 1 thing is that being a successful author isn't just about books or sales. It's also about lifestyle, right?

[00:28:15] Are you leveraging this to get promotions at work to have doors open for you to make connections to make friendships to enhance your profile as a human being? And we've got lots and lots of cases of success along those lines. Great. I'll put links to all those books in the show notes. So if you want to read any of those books, you can just click on the show notes.

[00:28:35] Then there'll be a link to them down there. With all that we talked about just today what advice would you give to authors who are considering submitting their manuscripts to Atmosphere Press? Are there any ways of making their manuscripts stand out, for example? Are there any things you'd expect to see, or what would increase a person's chances of getting success in order, when they're submitting their manuscripts?

[00:28:54] Yeah, yeah, I think, One thing I is, you know, have a cover letter in there, you know, like the more information that you can give us the better obviously if you're, you know, manuscript is more published worthy, you know, it's proofreading it, you know, like things like that, you know, like really make a big difference.

[00:29:14] Also right at the top of your cover letter, like put that you heard about on this podcast. That always really helps, helps, helps 1 stand out because we know, you know, sort of that you know, have some education about what we do coming into the potential relationship. I, because we get, we do get a lot of submissions, we get about 1400 submissions a bunch.

[00:29:38] Wow. Right? Okay. That's a lot. So, you know, and a lot of them come from people who, you know, they don't. Really know what's going on, right? They, you know, they maybe just googled like places to submit my manuscript and then they just shot out like 100 of these. Right? Yeah. So, any time anyone can come in and they're more of a referral, you know, that just gives us you know, we just know that we're starting on steadier footing.

[00:30:05] Um, so those are things definitely that help and then, you know, if you make it through those sort of 1st rounds, you know, go into the phone call with 1 of our acquisitions folks ready to ask questions, get answers, you know, review things and, you know, we can have an earnest conversation and see if it's a good fit for both sides.

[00:30:25] Great. And should, do you think an author should be clear with you exactly what they want to get out of their career as well? Yeah, I think that that's definitely helpful. I mean, if somebody is just I need to be a New York Times bestseller and I need to be on Oprah. I mean, when we see people say things like that, we're like, good luck, buddy.

[00:30:45] It's hard, you know, like selling books is not easy. You know, so, but yeah, definitely if you're like, I want my book to be like, treated well, I want to have like a good experience with this, you know, like I learned about your team. Like we have everybody on our team is like listed on our website.

[00:31:03] That's another thing. Go to many presses. You will not see a master. You will not see the people who you're actually going to be working with. You know, so on our website, we have all of that, you know, you can really connect as a human being to the people on our team. So, yeah, if, if, you know, that's something that interests you, you know, we would love to have a conversation.

[00:31:25] Great. Yeah, I did actually notice that when I was preparing for the interview, I was looking at your website and I was thinking, Oh, gosh, I can see everyone's names. I can see exactly what they do in their job descriptions. It was really great. So I felt that really transparent. It feels like your whole website is really transparent.

[00:31:38] So that is really good. Yeah. are there any particular trends in writing at the moment you're looking for? For example, are there any particular niches or categories of books that you'd really like to see more of at Amateur? I wouldn't say like niches necessarily or like trends.

[00:31:55] I mean, We always really love work that has some kind of experimental aspect to it in large part. The reason why I'm saying that it's like, we love publishing, you know, like, straight up genre fiction. You wrote a mystery novel. Like, we love it. We want to see it. Right. You wrote a fantasy. We want to see it.

[00:32:13] Right. But. We do love to see stuff that is like, challenging, you know, that's experimental. That's like, doing some risky stuff because those types of projects are just rare. And because we do have a lot of, like, literary folks on the team you know, if you wrote a book where you're like, man, this is going to be like, practically impossible to place anywhere else because it's like.

[00:32:37] Taking like seven different genres and mixing them together. Like that's the type of thing that we need to see for sure. Great. So if you're a bit more arty, maybe you'd be a good person to get in touch with. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today. I think that's really given people a really good overview of like exactly how hyper publishing works and difference between that and self publishing and the best things that people can do if they want to have the best chance of, you know, being taken on by you guys.

[00:33:03] So thank you very much for your time. Yeah. Just the, just the final question before we go. So Well, but actually before we get to that question, if people want to get in touch with Atmosphere and or get in touch with you specifically, where's the best place to do that? Yeah. So definitely go to atmospherepress.

[00:33:20] com. You know, as I mentioned, you can submit a manuscript there, but then we also have a lot of other resources. Like we have a huge article database full of articles and blog posts that have advice for authors. We run an author interview series. We run a, writing residency in Costa Rica. That does not cost any money to attend beyond, you know, your travel so that's like a competitive thing that people can apply to.

[00:33:47] I, we also have free book giveaway on our website where you can get 1 of our books for free potentially. And another cool tool that we have on there is we have a publishing potential quiz. I, where you can go on there and just take the short quiz, just 10 questions, just asking about your project, what you want, and based on your answers, we will give you sort of, you know, bespoke feedback in advice specifically on, you know, what might be good next steps for you.

[00:34:22] It might be like, hey, you should, you know, potentially consider A partnership with atmosphere, it might be like, Hey, self publishing would be a good choice for you or like, you should seek an agent or if you're an earlier stage project, you know, we might give you feedback on how to generate content.

[00:34:40] So that's something that's just on there that you can just check out. So, like, I sort of mentioned at the top of the call is that. We do want to be a resource for all sorts of writers, like, even the ones that we aren't publishing. So that's something that's important to us. Great. Thank you. I really appreciate your time today.

[00:34:59] That's all really helpful. And some of that extra training on your website is really good. I've read quite a few of your articles now and I've, I've really enjoyed all of them. So definitely check that out. And if you do get in touch with atmosphere, just mentioned, you heard on the podcast as Nick said yeah, that should help you out a bit.

[00:35:13] So the final question is, yeah, what book do you recommend that everyone should be reading that maybe is a bit, not, not everyone has been, they should be at the moment. Yeah. So I have a special recommendation. It's a book of poetry. Because I think that everybody should be reading poetry just because, I mean, it's, it's great.

[00:35:31] It's bite size, you know, like, you can read just 1 little bit at a time. You know, it doesn't require a huge amount of time. You can take like a single book of poetry and you can take 3 years to read it and that's fine. So the 1 that I want to recommend, it's got, it has an Humorous title how to monetize despair the title the name of the book and it's by Lisa Matolo.

[00:35:53] She's a really amazing poet. This is their 1st book out there. And yeah, it's, it's a book that deals with trauma deals with tragedy. It has humor in it. It has sadness in it. But it's a really great example of the craft and I think it's something that everybody should check out. Brilliant. Well, thank you very much.

[00:36:12] Nick, it's been really great chatting to you today. Thank you. And we'll speak again soon. All right. Have a good one. Thank you. so much for tuning into the Publishing Performance Podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world.

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