#realm makers

The last few months, I've been talking about how I've been so busy, and stressed, and overwhelmed, and blah, blah, blah. Some of it had to do with my day job as a physical therapist, but most of it revolved around my writing and editing career, the majority of it being work for my company, Havok Publishing.

Yes, I have a publishing company. But it's not "mine," exactly. Not completely, anyway. Almost a year ago, I took the reigns from its previous owner (Ben Wolf) with one stipulation: I'd have gobs and gobs of friends helping me run things. And after splitting the managerial strain with two spectacular women (I run the editorial department while a kraken runs the marketing and tech departments and a jackalope runs the operations department… that probably makes more sense to them than it does you…), I "hired" on almost twenty more volunteers to fill out the ranks. And since then, we've been busting our tails to create something that's so much bigger than any one of us.

But you may be asking why in the world twenty-something people would volunteer for anything so involved as a publishing company. Well, it's because of the spirit of said company. And I was reminded of that in a big way this past weekend.

The Realm Makers writing conference is the summer highlight for a very specific group of about 300 people. You see, we're all Christians, writers, and… kind of weird. That is, we're geeks and nerds. We collect Marvel comics, write dragon stories, and wear ridiculous costumes. And we never feel more at home than when we're among our own people.

Becky Minor and a faithful few created this conference several years ago, and I've been a part of it since the beginning. Which means I've formed some deep friendships with some amazing people, most of whom I don't see in person anywhere other than this conference. And over the years, I've had the joy of watching them grow from scared, flightless writers to bold, soaring authors. So many of them have forged their own path into the wild world, and many more have joined the ranks as wide-eyed newbies. And we all continue to have the same spirit of inclusiveness and excitement for the craft and industry of fiction stories, but unfortunately, we often also share the pain of rejection in said industry. And that's exactly where Havok Publishing comes in.

You see, there are a lot of readers out there. And there are also plenty of writers. But sometimes, getting good stories from writers to readers can be tricky. Polishing stories takes time. As does packaging them and delivering them into the right hands. And time is money, so many writers simply don't have the resources to get the job done, which is exactly why publishers exist. But publishers need to make money, too, which means they're often only willing to offer publishing contracts to the biggest and most well-established names in the industry. And only to the most exciting and well-packaged novels. And all of this leaves a very big hole in the process: providing new writers with an opportunity to improve their craft and put their polished stories in front of readers (other than their grandmas). And when I almost let Havok die last year, that was the only reason I didn't. We truly were a company that provided the bridge for those new writers. And we were one of the only ones in our corner of the industry doing it.

Since then, we've grown at a staggering rate. We've flipped our production and delivery model on end. We've turbo-charged our marketing. And we've been met by hordes of supporters that continue to push us forward toward great things. But, as I said, we're all volunteers. So twenty-something hours per week of pouring in without getting much back except "Good Job" stickers can take its toll. So when we were starting to feel beat down, I encouraged us all to wait until that always-magical Realm Makers weekend before losing heart. And, if I must say, I was right.

The weeks leading up to the conference were a blur. We were busy curating the best stories we'd acquired over the past six months into our first anthology, and unless you've ever published your own book (correctly), I can't possibly tell you how involved the process in. But just know that we barely made it in time. We didn't do everything right, but the final product looked amazing, and seventy-two copies of it came with us for sale in the conference bookstore.

And less than twenty-four hours after the conference began, we sold out.

Yes, all seventy-two books that we ambitiously printed, loaded up, and put on display among so many other amazing novels, anthologies, comics, and crafts completely sold out in less than a day. And I was completely floored. And through the rest of the conference, other writers and fans continued to ask how they could purchase our anthology. They bought t-shirts and went online and bought the anthology there (which you can do by clicking on this link to amazon.com). And it took me a while to figure out how in the world that could have happened.

But slowly, it dawned on me: it was the spirit of Havok. We foster and nurture eager young writers. We build them up. We guide them. We give them hope. And we set them up for success in what is oftentimes their first real publication. And they, in turn, are the ultimate rockstars and advocates for what we're doing. Probably half of those seventy-two anthology copies were bought by authors who were published in it (for gifts for their friends and family), and the other half were snatched up by Realmies (the affectionate name for the Realm Makers tribe/attendees) who felt the palpable excitement generated by those of us involved in the magic.

I think there were eighteen of the Havok Hive (the name for Havok's collective volunteer staff… you will be assimilated) in attendance at this year's Realm Makers. And as a small token, Cerberus (the name for the aforementioned three heads of Havok, myself being one of them. Yes, I know. We have a lot of strange titles. Didn't I warn you that we're weird?) gifted them with bright orange Havok lanyards. And as the Hive busied itself about the conference, helping here and there where needed, it unwittingly lightened the tensions weighing on those young writers whom we love so much. As one woman told me on the last night of the conference, "Every time I see an orange lanyard, I know the person wearing it will be encouraging. Like I can actually do this thing."

And that's when I knew we'd won. We'd accomplished, for the moment, what we set out to do. We'd given back to a conference and a culture that had already made such a difference in the lives of so many. We'd played our small but essential part in the process. And we will continue to do so. We're acquiring hundreds of stories each year. We're putting the best of those stories in beautiful anthologies alongside some of the industry’s biggest names. We're putting our energy and resources directly back into our authors and projects that will benefit them. And we're doing it all because we love it. And we love them. And we couldn't do any of it without that constant reminder. So, thank you, everyone, who has supported Havok Publishing along the way. You're helping us make a difference in the lives of so many creatives. And, in turn, you're helping their stories make a change in this world. 

We're doing good work here at Havok, and it takes a village… or in this case, a Hive… or a Horde. I don't know. Maybe we do need to reconsider how many strange labels we're putting on everything. But you get my drift. Together, we’re weird. We’re writers. And we’re wonderful. Write on!