Thank you so much for visiting Lemons & Gold Publishing!
Lemons & Gold Publishing is a small, boutique indie press that specializes in publishing speculative novels by Black authors due to the pushback that Black speculative authors receive from the mainstream publishing houses. About 2% of 2,000 speculative authors that were published in 2015, were Black authors. That’s unacceptable!
Therefore, we’re currently accepting and publishing manuscripts from Black authors (across the Diaspora), who write fantasy, science, and contemporary speculative fiction. This can also include stories that have a lot of magical realism elements in them as well.
It’s exciting to get your first book published, but it’s also important to know what you’re getting yourself into, so why should you work with a small press? Well, you get more of a face-to-face, personal approach with the publisher. Small presses are able to sit with you and help you improve your story and your overall writing craft as a writer. We do this by highlighting your strengths and pointing out substantial weaknesses in your story.
Being that we are a small press, this also allows you to receive more in royalties with us than you would with a big-name publisher, simply because you don’t have a pile of people to pay. Lemons & Gold Publishing will support you as you begin your career as an author.
As the Head of Publishing at Lemons & Gold Publishing, Khali LaBre will help you by:
- Completing a development edit of your novel to make sure your story is cohesive and doesn’t have substantial errors
- Formatting your books for ebook and print distribution
- Creating a beautiful book cover that fits your books genre and market*
- Promoting your book before, during, and after your release date* on our social media outlets and our website, where we will also list you as one of our authors
- Distrbuting your books to a wide number of retailers
Why should you work with Lemons & Gold Publishing? Great question! Although we’re new, our founder and owner, Khàli LaBré, isn’t new to publishing. She started in 2018 as a self-published author while finishing her undergrad degree in English. She published two novels that year and did the entire process by herself as a broke college student.
She knows what it’s like to write 4th and 5th drafts, edit the book into oblivion, participate in critique groups, to create her own book covers, submit a book to be added to the county library, and later down the road after she had already published her first two books, she worked as a digital marketer and learned how to advertise on social media. She’s currently in an MFA master’s program, fine-tuning her creative writing abilities and learning about the industry.
Khàli LaBré is well qualified to help you on your journey and provide you with the resources you need to guide you on your next steps after publishing. She will help you avoid the mistakes she made when she first became a published author, and will tell you what she knows to help you with your journey.
Once you submit your story to us, we will respond within 7-10 business days. If your story meets our criteria and we find interest in it, we will let you know within that week if we would like to publish it and send you our offer.
From that point, we will complete extensive edits, critiques, and coaching moments, and also run promotional campaigns before, during, and after your book is published and launched. We will also offer you a book cover, or you can use one that has been made for you as long as it meets our standards as our publishing brand.
We will also help you find ways to do your author events (especially online right now due to the pandemic), and other resources to promote your story. If we find your work to be exceptional, we will submit your story to be nominated for various book awards.
What We Expect From You as an Author
We expect our authors is to bring us a completely finished manuscript that meets our genre and standards, preferably pre-edited and reviewed or beta-read. Authors should also be promoting themselves and their work prior to working with us and will be responsible for their part in self-promotion. More details will be given when we give you our offer and meet with you on a scheduled Zoom call.
To submit your manuscript with us, you must follow our submission guidelines that can be found on our website at https://lemonsngold.com/queries/
Our overall goal is to have a bigger team and provide even more for our authors and readers throughout the year and into 2023. Khàli has so many ideas in store, but it really depends on you and your support as authors, readers, and subscribers to help us in our efforts to see this goal come true!
We are the Voice of the Black Superhero!
Cite Your Sources!: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/09/black-science-fiction-writers-universal-racism-study-finds-fireside-fiction-blackspecfic