Life Update and A Look Back at Tule’s History
Ah! Such a good question. And the answer is—I don’t know. It’s not done. It’s been hard to focus.
Q. What are you doing that’s distracting you from writing?A. Another excellent question! The truth is: everything. Family, sons moving into new abodes, Ty making some career shifts, Mac starting driver’s ed. We are just busy. But I’m also writing less as I work more and more on Tule editorial and film projects.
Most of my readers know I founded a publishing company in 2013, but a lot of authors still don’t know that Tule is ‘mine’. Tule is a real company, managed by an incredible team of publishing professionals, staff who do the hard stuff while I play publisher. 
I thought it was time to give you a bit of backstory about how Tule came about—for those who don’t know– and then over the next couple of weeks highlight each of our different team members. You can also check out Tule’s about page here.
Q. So in the very beginning, how did Tule Publishing come about?
A. In 2013 I wanted to do something creative and commercially viable with my close friends, CJ Carmichael, Megan Crane and Lilian Darcy. We were all Harlequin authors and yet we wrote for different lines. We thought it would be fun to do something together, and we decided to write some loosely linked stories set in Montana.
We met up in Montana in May of 2013, and brainstormed at CJ’s Flathead Lake cottage, before piling into her car with way too much luggage (I was to blame for the too much luggage) and we hit the road, traveling across Montana to Livingston, Bozeman and throughout Paradise Valley. At CJ’s cottage and on the road, we did extensive world building, creating our own town and individual story series ideas, which became Montana Born’s 75th Copper Mountain Rodeo, and also, Tule’s first imprint.
At this point, Tule Publishing was little more than an LLC and the first imprint little more than a marketing tool so readers could find our Marietta, Montana stories easily. Marketing makes sense to me. Before I sold my first book, I was in sales and marketing for six years and then a teacher for six years, and I know how important it is for your customer to be able to find you.
This is how we added more stories to Marietta: We’d published two rodeo stories in September and then two more in October. Then we needed more stories so I reached out to Katherine Garbera at the RWA Anaheim conference and told her what we were doing and invited her to write a Christmas story for Montana Born. She, in turn, reached out to Melissa McClone who also agreed to write a Christmas story.
We just kept adding authors and stories, not just to Montana Born, but to two other newly created imprints, Holiday and then Southern Born. Our growth was really organic. Authors would find us or we’d find them, and it turned out to be a win-win for all of us. What makes Tule work is that we really wanted to be supportive of smart, successful, creative women – we wanted an environment that respected and empowered authors – without ever marginalizing them. That meant we couldn’t take every book, and it meant that we made mistakes as we learned on the job. Admittedly, not every decision, or every story, has had the sales and success we’ve wanted, but Tule’s strength is being small, flexible and focused on the goal of supporting talented authors and keeping the communication open, honest and real.
A. Tule’s first staff member was Meghan Farrell, who had just graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. She’d packed up her car after graduation and headed west, landing in San Clemente. Her mom was good friends with a friend of mine from Visalia, and was given my name as a local contact. Meghan and I met for coffee in late September 2013, and was hired almost right away. She joined Tule after our first two rodeo stories were published, but before the 2nd two, so it’s fair to say she has been here since virtually the beginning.
Stay tuned for more of Meghan’s story with Tule, coming Saturday!
Giveaway
For a chance to win the Montana Born Extravaganza, share in the comments your favorite part of the many stories set in Montana. Contest ends on March 17th and the winner will be posted here. Check back on the 17th for the winner!
