Meet Publisher Karen Syed

By Kathryn Craft

Karen Syed, Publisher at Echelon Press, is becoming quite a friend of The Write Stuff conference. In her last few visits with us she has signed authors Kieryn Nicolas, Jon Gibbs, Ralph Hieb, and Carla Veno Jones.

About Echelon Press
Echelon Press is a small independent publisher of trade paperbacks and e-books. Its divisions include Quake (young adult), Explorations (SF, Fantasy, Horror) and Shorts. General submissions are for electronic publication only; titles for paperback publication are acquired by invitation only. The most effective way of securing an invitation is by in-house author referral, or by meeting with Karen at The Write Stuff!

What they are looking for: They accept queries in all fiction genres, including romance, mystery (including cozy, hard-boiled, police procedural, noir), thrillers, westerns, inspirational, women's fiction, historical, young adult, science fiction, fantasy, horror, novellas, and short fiction. Submissions must include a detailed marketing strategy.

What they are not looking for: Erotica, non-fiction.

About Karen Syed

Karen Syed is the president and COO of Echelon Press, LLC. Every day is a new success story for her as she continues to grow along with her business. She has seen seven of her own novels published (writing as Alexis Hart), along with numerous articles and short stories. As a former bookstore owner, she garnered a nomination from Publishers Weekly for their Bookseller of the Year award. She is committed to helping and encouraging everyone she comes in contact with to seek a healthier and more positive quality of life by reaching for their dreams. Her newest fascination is Steampunk, which is feeding her minor obsession with the Victorian era. She is currently embarking on her own Steampunk series, Petticoat Junction. 

For more on Karen

Check out some of her blog posts:

On what to do and what not to do when seeking a publisher.

On what makes a good author.

On e-books, and musings about J.A. Konrath.

On "Why I Do This," featuring GLVWG's Kieryn Nicolas.

She had The Write Stuff: Kieryn Nicolas

This is the last in a series of interviews conference chair Kathryn Craft conducted with former conferees that made successful publishing connections at The Write Stuff conference.


Kathryn Craft: You met your publisher, Karen Syed, at The Write Stuff conference last year. Tell us how your pitch session went. Were you nervous? Any advice for people pitching for the first time this year?

Kieryn Nicolas: My pitch session went great. I was nervous, because I’d never done a story pitch before. The concept and structure was completely foreign. But Karen was extremely nice, and I felt comfortable, because I was talking about writing…my problem was the time limit, because I could talk about writing for hours! My advice is to relax, and be yourself. It’s not a bad idea to make a good impression with your personality, and not just your story!

KC: How did it feel to be offered a contract? I see this is for both eBook and print. How do you like the cover?

KN: So not to be spending my summer biting my nails, I tried to focus on other things after submitting my manuscript, like more writing. When I got the news I was chatting with my good friend, and I was so surprised I just said, “Whoa. I’m going to be published.” Then it hit me, and I started screaming.

I’m a big fan of the cover. I met my friend (the same one I was talking to when I got my contract) at our old middle school and we had a “photo shoot” where I took pictures of her to put on the promo cover. I later was discussing my favorite pictures and cover ideas with my cousin. He asked me to send them to him, and within a few hours he’d come up with the layout and effects of the cover picture. I loved it, and my publisher agreed, so it became the official cover!

KC: How did the editing process go? Tell us about your experience.

KN: I’d heard that the editing process was tough, and it hasn’t disappointed me. I’ve been through content and technical edits, and I could probably recite my story by now—or I’ve at least memorized how it looks. When my editor sent me back a version where she had made some edits, I was able to see where words had been switched around or punctuation interchanged without indicators! But even though it got tedious at times, I was glad to do it.

KC: As concerns the powering up of your PR machine--blog, website, social networking, etc.--did Echelon help you at all in its development? If not, how have you figured out what to do?


KN: Echelon definitely helped me out. I was given suggestions as to what to do—such as sites to join, facebooking, blogging, etc.—and there are always emails circulating from Echelon and Echelon authors with ideas and tips for PR. Other than that I’ve been spreading the word in person and scheduling author events.

A member of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, Kieryn Nicolas, 15, resides in central Pennsylvania with her parents, younger sister, their lovable yellow lab, black cat, and ten hens. Kieryn was a competitive figure skater for nine years and is currently working hard to advance in taekwondo. She loves school and spending time with her close friends. She also loves to read, write, eat chocolate, and travel, with hopes of someday seeing Brisbane, Australia—a setting in her book—herself. Echelon Press released Rain in e-book format in January 2010 will publish the novel in print later this year.


Write Stuff registration will be open through March 12. Space still remains in keynote James Frey's two-full-day pre-conference workshop, "How to Plot Like the Pros."

He had The Write Stuff: Ralph Hieb

The third in a series of interviews conference chair Kathryn Craft conducted with former conferees that made successful publishing connections at The Write Stuff conference.

Kathryn: You met Karen Syed, publisher at Echelon Press, last year at The Write Stuff conference. Any advice for people pitching for the first time this year?

Ralph: The best advice I can give is be yourself and stay on topic. A good short summary of your work will get you closer to your goal than straying around what is actually in your work. I practiced delivering what I was going to say a week before the conference. Speaking out loud what you wish to say and doing it in front of a mirror seemed to help me set the timing of my delivery. I received this advice from attending a number of conferences and I believe it paid off.

K: How did the submission process go from there?

R: It took until October to get an answer, and it was a rejection. About one month later the senior editor notified me that one of the editors had read it and liked it. If I was still interested they would offer me a contract. Of course I was interested.

K: How did it feel to be offered a contract—especially following as it did on the heels of a rejection from the same publisher?

R: Is the term walking on air still being used? Because that is exactly how I felt, and still do.

K: Your contract is for publishing an eBook, right? Tell us how the relatively new eBook might factor into an author's plan for career growth.

R: Yes, my contract is for an eBook. I think that it is a good vehicle to get noticed. A recent report on the radio said that eBooks outsold traditionally published books for the holiday season. So it is a market that has a lot of potential. As you know, the more exposure an author gets the better the chances for more contracts.

Ralph Hieb, a former Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group president, lives in Bethlehem PA with his wife Nancy. Ralph is also a member of the Bethlehem Writers Group. Their book, A Christmas Sampler: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Holiday Tales, contains his story, “Walter and Stella.” Ralph enjoys reading and watching vampire movies. He hopes to someday visit a lot of European castles.

Write Stuff registration ALERT: Only 5 days of early bird registration remain! Your registration must be postmarked by Feb. 25 to receive the discounted rate. The hotel group rate of $85 will disappear on that same day. If you can't make your conference decision by then do not fear: we will accept mail-in registrations at the full registration rate of $135 up until a March 12 postmark.

Days to the conference: 34!

He had The Write Stuff: Jon Gibbs

The first in a series of interviews conference chair Kathryn Craft conducted with former conferees that made successful publishing connections at The Write Stuff conference.

Kathryn: You met your publisher, Karen Syed of Echelon Press, at last year’s The Write Stuff conference. Tell us how your pitch session went.

Jon: I remember feeling nervous.  Despite appearances to the contrary I’m extremely shy, but Karen’s friendly smile set me at ease. I gave her my elevator pitch. “I’ve written a 55k novel, Fur-Face, an urban fantasy about a 13-year-old boy who meets a talking cat that only he can hear.”

Karen asked a couple of questions as I told her a bit more about the book. She didn’t fall asleep, which I took as a good sign. Afterwards she gave me her business card, asked me to send in the full manuscript, and told me to research the eBook industry. 

K: Any advice for people pitching for the first time this year?

J: Come prepared. Polish then practice your elevator pitch (a one or two line summary of your novel ) until you can say it in your sleep, and be ready to answer questions and talk some more about your novel. 

Be yourself, but be professional. My old gran used to tell me, “You only get one chance to make a first impression, so don’t screw it up you pillock!”—she was known for being a straight talker. 

Listen to what the agent/publisher is saying. Remember, they want your book to be as good as you think it is, but they expect you to be able to tell them what it’s about in a way that captures their interest.

K: How did the submission process go from there?

J: Slowly, though that’s my own fault. I’d learned a lot about writing over the preceding year and decided Fur-Face still needed some polishing, so I set to work over the next two months, getting it into the best shape possible. Taking care to follow Echelon’s submission guidelines, I sent it to Karen at the beginning of July, along with an apology for the delay. Aside from a brief acknowledgement, I didn’t hear anything more until December 30^th, when I got an email saying they’d like to offer me an e-Book contract.

K: How did it feel to be offered a contract?

J: Now that it’s sunk in, I’d say ‘validated’ is the word which best sums up how I feel, but when I first read the email it felt… weird.  Not least because earlier that day, I’d posted something on my blog about how I was determined to carve out a career as a writer. 

I wrote Fur-Face (or at least a really awful first draft of it) nearly seven years ago. Back then I really believed that all I had to do was type ‘THE END’, run spell check and wait for agents to come banging at my door. It took me the better part of four years just to figure out that I didn’t know what I was doing, and three more years of learning and revision after that to get to the current ‘We’d like to offer you a contract’ stage.

K: Your contract offered you a chance to publish an eBook. What factors did you take into account as you made your decision about whether to take this step?

J: The key thing for me was editorial input. I don’t expect any publisher to print my book ‘as is.’ I’m not talking about format and grammar (though both are important), but I’m not naïve enough to think my novel is perfect. I’m wanted that editorial input about the story arc, character development, etc.

Also, as much as I understand that self-promotion is vital for a book's success, it made sense to look at how Echelon Press promotes itself and its authors.

K: You blog faithfully at "An Englishman in New Jersey." How do you think this has affected your writing career?

It’s had a huge impact. I look on blogging as an important part of my writing career. It’s all very well having a novel published, but in the USA alone more than 250,000 new books come out each year. That’s a lot of competition. 

A blog gives you a chance to connect with people from all around the world. Will all those folks buy your book? No. The most you can hope for is that a small percentage of them might recognize your name when they see it on the spine of a novel or on a webpage, and some of those people might then decide to read the blurb. 

An unexpected benefit of blogging is how much I’ve learned about writing through my journal. There’s a wealth of knowledge and writing know-how on the web. How much would you pay for helpful advice from successful authors, agents and editors in your genre? An online journal gives you access to people from all around the world. Many of them share their knowledge and experience on their blogs, for free

K: Do you still have time to write?

J: Writers make time for pitch/query letters. They do that because they want people to read their work. A good blog will help you achieve that, too. There’s no denying that blogging takes work—I spend at least an hour a day on average, but that leaves plenty of time for writing. Rather than “Do you still have time?” perhaps a better question would be “Is blogging worth making the time for?” to which my answer is a resounding “Yes!”

Born in England, Jon Gibbs now lives in New Jersey, USA.  His MG urban Fantasy, FUR-FACE will be published as an e-book by Echelon Press sometime in 2011.  In addition to his online-journal, An Englishman in New Jersey, he occasionally guest posts for unsuspecting bloggers who don’t know him well enough to realize the mistake they’re making – most recently at NathanBransford.com. An active member of the Garden State Horror Writers and the Monmouth Creative Writing Group, as well as a new member of GLVWG, he can usually be found hunched over the laptop in his kitchen. One day he hopes to figure out how to switch it on.


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