Last month we reported we’d been to the Melbourne International Film Festival to promote the idea of adapting some of our books for the screen. The one-on-one meetings with movie producers was a fascinating experience. Pleasingly, there was active interest in the role of women in the books. Note to budding authors: Movie producers are no longer interested if women are just damsels in distress or define themselves by their relationship status. They wanted strong female characters.

One of our books, Rapture by Jeremy Stanford had been pre-selected for a special shortlist of titles whose rights were available. This meant it had an extra promotion to the hundred plus producers taking part. The pitch was delivered by Seph McKenna the CEO of Screenwest and followed by a QnA with Seph and Tale Publishing’s Publisher, Robert New. Seph did the pitch as the voice of God (appropriate for the book) and it was very well received, leading to several producers expressing interest in the one-on-one meetings. Who knows where it might lead?

Here is the video trailer for our next publication, Movemind, by Robert New. It is available to order now.

Christine Hoy will be giving a talk on behalf of the University of the Third Age at 4 pm on 5th April at the Hapimag Hotel, Marbella, Spain. She will be talking about the search for her biological family and her struggle with adoption which form the basis of her memoir, Secret Sibling. She will also be talking about her charity Good News Children’s Trust (UK) for which she works to bring health and education to under-privileged children. The profits from sales of Secret Sibling go directly to this charity. If you can’t make the talk you can still find out more about Christine by reading her memoir which can be purchased through your local bookshop (ISBN: 9780994439925) and online retailers including Amazon. The e-book version is discounted to 99p or 99c from the 4th until the 11th of April 2018.

The last few months have led to some exciting developments with Tale Publishing. Our distribution partnership has started and orders for hard copies of our titles will now be distributed by Woodslane. Our next goal is to gain similar distribution for Europe.

We now have six authors under our banner and several new titles set for publication. In January we will be re-releasing a back title from one of our authors, Jeremy Stanford, called Year of the Queen. This is a memoir of his time in the stage production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert and the release is timed with a revival of this musical. In March, Jeremy’s debut novel, Rapture, will be launched.

Early next year will also see the release of a speculative short story collection from Robert New, tentatively called Movemind. This will be his second book with us.

We’re also expecting to launch a series of six children’s and two non-fiction books from a new author soon. We’re keeping the rest of the details under wraps as the titles and scope of the project are finalised.

For a company that aims to publish two or three titles a year, we have at least ten titles set for release next year, which leads to the following:

Since forming we’ve had strong interest from people submitting manuscripts to us for consideration. We have been thrilled to generate such interest and have signed half of our authors from this process, however the submissions have built up and our response time has extended beyond what we consider to be fair. As such we have made the decision to close our submissions until at least November so that we can clear the backlog.

Tale Publishing are thrilled to announce that starting in September (but available to order now) we have Australia wide distribution for our books through Woodslane. Arranging distribution (beyond online bookshops) has been a goal of ours since we formed, as it helps us meet our objective to “form partnerships that enable our publications to reach the widest possible audience.” Woodslane will actively market our books to major retailers and help our titles get onto shelves in stores. This will also help us meet one of our other objectives of being “a publisher of choice for authors, retailers and readers.”

Over the Queen’s birthday weekend, we’ll be at the Continuum Science Fiction Convention in Melbourne. On Sunday we’ll be part of the ‘market day’ and running a stall to sell our books. We’d love to see you there.

Continuum is at The Jasper Hotel, 489 Elizabeth St, Melbourne VIC 3000. 4pm-9pm Friday, 9am-6pm Sat/Sun and 9am-1pm Monday.

Recently, while reading through Tale Publishing’s pile of submissions, we found a story that not only captured our attention, it took it hostage. It was a novel by Jeremy Stanford called Rapture.

Rapture is the tale of an atheist couple whose child is born with a halo.

After signing a contract with Jeremy this morning, we are thrilled to say Tale Publishing will be bringing you this cracking story towards the end of the year.

Jeremy has previously written a memoir about his time with the Australian stage production of Priscilla Queen of the Desert. He also wrote and directed the movie The Sunset Six. Rapture will be his debut novel. We can’t wait for you to read it.