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From the Publishers Weekly Religion Bookline Newsletter - January 12, 2005
New Project Publishing Teen Authors While countless publishers seek teenagers' dollars, Fresh Writers Books (http://www.freshWritersbooks.com/) is publishing teen authors who were selected in a contest and mentored through the writing process. Of the first four titles being released in March, two are Christian books, one a memoir and the other a romance novel. Computer books author and publisher Bill Jelen of Holy Macro! Books started the imprint. As a Junior Achievement volunteer for the ninth grade class at Lake High School in Uniontown, Ohio, he was talking last March to students about small presses. He realized most kids aspire to a summer job at a pizza restaurant, working 20 hours a week for $5 an hour. But, he thought, what if they had the opportunity to earn the same money by writing--and ended up with a book? Working with journalism teacher Rick Friedline, Jelen created a contest that drew eight book proposals. "The goal was to offer one internship," said Jelen, who has funded everything. But he ended up taking on four students. The young authors spent the summer working toward weekly deadlines of 10 pages and meeting with Jelen in a local coffeehouse to study the publishing business. He gave teacher Suzanne Arnold's vocational marketing department a budget of $2,000 per book with the project to market them. The marketing students have been peppering Oprah Winfrey with requests to feature Fresh Writers books and tell the story behind them. Eighteen-year-old senior Tessa Sean Hershberger, whose Christian testimonial "Confessions of a Girl: Truth to Be Told" is the only nonfiction title, said the meetings inspired and motivated her to keep writing. "Every week Bill would be so enthusiastic and would tell us what they were doing to market the books," she said. Fresh Writers also published the Christian romance "The Heart's Flames" by Ashley Shawntel, now a freshman at Malone College in Canton, Ohio. My computer books are very, very successful and this is an opportunity to give back, said Jelen. He is taking the contest nationwide now, and pitching Winfrey to get financially involved in making the project bigger. "If it's just me, we'll do four books. If I find some funding, we'll open it up." --Juli Cragg Hilliard (c) Reed Business Information. Published twice monthly. To subscribe to PW Religion BookLine, go to www.publishersweekly.com. This page current as of May 24, 2007 8:43 AM |