Small Press Big Stories - Forbidden Planet talks to Fox Spirit Books

 

In anticipation of our Small Press Expo this month, Forbidden Planet talks to Adele Wearing of Fox Spirit Books about publishing, submitting and the problems with cats!

Why did you start Fox Spirit Books?

It started like the opening to bad joke, a blogger, an academic and a genre journalist were in a car. The short version is I was going to do one book, Tales of the Nun & Dragon as a simple everyone-splits-any-takings bit of fun. Things got terribly out of hand and here we are coming up on six years later with a lot more titles than I ever imagined. 

I am genuinely proud of what we have all achieved. 

What do you look for in a submission and why?

At heart I am always a reader first, so going through the submissions I want to publish the ones that excite me most as a reader. When you approach the subs pile it’s simple, which ones do I start and go ‘oooh’. What can I not wait to read more or and what catches me by surprise. 

What’s the hardest thing about being a publisher? 

Rejections. I always hate that. Completing a book is something to be proud of, doing it well is real achievement and to turn away some really good submissions is hard. 

What do you read on a regular basis?

If you pop downstairs in Forbidden Planet and walk around a bit. That. Yeah that’s about right. I go back to urban fantasy and young adult fantasy quite often as I find them super quick to read, and I try to pick up small press works when I can because there are a number bringing out really good SFF and Horror. 

We all know that Small Press Publishers work hard – can you tell us how many projects do you have on at the moment?

Well, we have two getting a final polish ready for publication, Starfang 2&3 are in editing, I have paperwork to send out for three books we want to do this year, I am getting ready for two events in Feb and March… I will stop there before my blood pressure catches up. 

What do you do in your (copious obviously) free time?

After dayjob, Fox Spirit and cat related duties I am queen of Netflix and chill. By chill I mean fall asleep, snore a little and wake up to find a cat fast asleep on me. 

Join Adele and a host of other fantastic Small Press publishers for our #smallpressbigstories event on February 24th!