Progress

In May of 2012 my two partners and I officially incorporated - we formed Intrigue Publishing LLC and nothing has been the same since. Going into business changed not only our lives but the lives of the dozen authors we have signed contracts with (aside from me of course.) It is amazing how much has changed in that time.

We started with a focus on four genres and that hasn't changed, but received submissions have varied a lot. We've gotten a mountain of crime fiction manuscripts and published a few. Death and White Diamonds has won two conference awards so far. Likewise, we've seen a pretty good stack of Young Adult tales and put some fine ones out. I can't explain why Girl Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie (our content editor's favorite Intrigue book to date) is not a best seller. It's a fabulous, well written tale. On the other hand the equally wonderful Y-A The Boy Who Knew Too Much won an award at the Love is Murder Writers Conference. 
On the other hand, we have yet to receive a contemporary drama manuscript we like enough to put out there next to B. Swangin Webster's Let Me Just Say This and its sequel, Let Me Say This Again. And we had been in business for three years before we got a romance we loved enough to publish. This fall Center Courtship and The Inheritance will explode onto the scene (at least, I think they will.) In all the genres we cover, we are determined to publish Writing That Can't Be Ignored.

We went into this business thinking we'd move a ton of ebooks and that if we called enough bookstores we could get our books onto the shelves one store at a time. Ebook sales have not been what we expected but now we have an arrangement with Small Press United (a subsidiary of Independent Publishers Group) who have people who call bookstores to get books onto shelves. We've recently been able to pay someone to call bookstores to set up book signings, allowing us to put new authors on limited, local tours. Liza Brown, author of Center Courtship, already has three book events  - two at Barnes and Nobles stores - for her book which we will release September 15.
From the beginning we have sent books to all the major reviewers hoping they'd notice us. It has been a steep hill but we've made progress bit by bye. The aforementioned Center Courtship is our first title accepted for review at Publishers Weekly. BTW, Jacqueline Seewald, author of The Inheritance, has previously been reviewed by PW so we're optimistic about a repeat.
From the start we have endeavored to behave like the big guys: pay advances and royalties, promote our authors, work to sell other rights, publish award winning books, etc. So far, I think we've earned a reputation as a legitimate, professional and author-friendly house. I'm probably inordinately proud of that.