My neighbor saw the blog entry I posted last night, printed it out, then looked at me, eyes wide. "THREE PAGES?" she screeched.

Hmm. Was she trying to tell me I was a bit long-winded?

So, no whining today. I'll try to find a whine-free topic. I was going to use inspiration as this entry's topic, but it started to gush a little too much, and almost made me sound like a brainless bimbo whose only purpose in life is to ogle hot men.

Don't I wish.

So, inspiration is out. How about publishers that aren't the majors?

I admit, I'm not particularly knowledgeable on this topic. Then again, my purpose here is not to educate, but to express my thoughts.

As I mentioned last night, I'm preparing to finally submit my first manuscript for publishing. Now, since I'm still unagented, the number of publishers I'm able to submit to is greatly reduced. Generally speaking, it pretty much knocks out most of the large house publishers.

There are a few houses that will look at my book, but another possible brick wall for me is my story straddles two genres. At it's heart, Irresistible Harmony is a romance. However, certain elements of the story prevent it from being a classic romance. It's more Single Title. Mainstream with strong romantic elements. Women's Fiction with strong romantic elements.

It's the story of a young woman who rediscovers her latent inner strength and self-esteem to conquer adversity, both real and imagined, and finds love along the way.

Hm. I just came up with that this moment. Too generic? I do have a more descriptive blurb of my story, but for my purposes here, this one will do.

Anyway, back to my topic. Small/medium and epress publishing. Without an agent, it may be my best route to publishing credit for my first novel.

I'm not bemoaning the fact.

Ellora's Cave, an ePublisher who's also the only one at present recognized by the RWA, has just announced the future launch of a new imprint. Cerridwen Press. As soon as I saw that news, I knew in my heart that would be the first publisher I'd submit my story to.

I don't know yet if they'll be a print publisher -- that information has not yet been released. However, I do know that in addition to ePublishing, Ellora's Cave is moving into print, so there's possibility. There's not much known about Cerridwen yet -- only that they'll be handling everything Ellora's Cave doesn't.

An author on one of the writing groups I belong to also suggested Medallion Press as another possibility for me. Medallion has also just recently been recognized by the RWA.

Small/medium press and ePublishers have got a bad rap in the past. They weren't releasing quality books. But things have changed since then. Quite a bit. And I've since read some wonderful books published by companies I'd never heard of five years ago.

That bodes well for an unpublished author like me. We have more choices. More opportunities.

I'm just hoping that one of them pans out for me.