Star Publish LLC

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Our Staff
 
T.C. McMullen: Owner and Director of Operations
 
Janet Elaine Smith: Marketing Director
 
J. Mahute: Business Manager
 
K. McMullen: Website and Office Assistant
 
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T.C. McMullen
Owner and Director of Operations
A woman of all trades, T.C. McMullen has delved into areas of book creation from authoring, editing, designing, illustrating, publishing, marketing and teaching. She began writing professionally in the mid 1990s after receiving her diploma from Long Ridge Writers Group in Connecticut for completing the "Breaking Into Print" course. Her first novel, a psychological thriller Whispers of Insanity, was published in 2002. Shortly after, T.C. joined Global Authors Publications as Senior Editor and Artistic Development Editor. In the following years, she chose to go freelance with her services, working for Global Authors Publications, Jada Press, and Star Publish as well as providing services for individual authors for dozens of titles, many award winning. At the start of 2008, T.C. stepped into leadership of Star Publish. To date, she has seen five of her own titles in print including the reader acclaimed Manipulated Evil Trilogy with two more titles soon to be released. She also offers three writing courses at Long Story Short School of Writing. She resides in rural Pennsylvania with her three daughters, husband of seventeen years, and two canines to keep everything a bit more exciting.

Janet Elaine Smith

Marketing Director

Janet Elaine Smith came onto the book publishing scene in June 2000 with the release of her first book, Dunnottar. With no marketing background and not even knowing an author had to market their own book, she soon proved that hard work, good luck and the right contacts could bring success. The fact that bookstores are now more open to stocking Print-On-Demand books is due in large part to Janet's unique, fun phone calls to bookstores. Janet's book, Promo Paks: Nearly-Free Marketing for Authors, is published in e-book format by Star Publish.

       

In addition to being appointed to the Star Publish staff as Marketing Director, Janet is in charge of the new Shooting Star Books Program where her services are available for selected Star authors.

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About Star Publish 
 

People often wonder what kind of publisher we are.  The truth is, we aren't black or white, we are in the middle gray, a cross breed of traditional publishing and self-publishing. 

 

What does that mean?

 

Star Publish is like a traditional publisher in that:

 

·        We do not accept every title that is submitted to us. A manuscript must be good, interesting and well written. It means something when your book is accepted here.

·        We edit every book that comes through, never sending something to print without a careful going through by us.

·        We have every one of our manuscripts professionally formatted for the genre and style of the individual book

·        We assign each book an ISBN number, a must for books to be available in bookstores and other outlets

·        We procure a Library of Congress Control Number for each book

·        We see to listing the book in places like Books in Print.

·        We follow closely the publishing trends to ensure our books compete in the same arena as others on the market

 

Star Publish is like a self-publisher in that:

 

  • We charge a fee only to help cover the costs of the services we provide for each book
  • We take into consideration our author’s suggestions for their work
  • The author retains control of their rights to their work. Star Publish LLC only holds what rights are needed to put the book into print and those rights revert back to the author if the contract is ever dissolved.

What makes us different?

  • We stay a part of the author’s life even after the book is produced with an online meeting room for all Star authors and staff to interact together. We are also always available to our authors for any reason by email
  • We offer tips for marketing as well as some group marketing when the opportunities arise.
  • We take care of the background things such as adding your book to listings, posting media release on some online outlets, and making sure all book details are correct in such places as Ingram.
  •  We are not out to make money. The charges passed to our authors are to cover the company expenses for the author’s book or books.  This is why it is so important for Star and the authors to work closely together for the good of all. We are here for you, to handle the not so nice things behind the scenes of having a book published.

 

We can’t promise you grand success.  Success depends much on you.  What we can promise is we will give you every tool available for you to take your book as high as you want it to go.  We start by producing a top of the line printed book that you can be proud of and provide everything you need to make it available to the public.  We also help you get started in announcing it to the world.

 

The bottom line is, Star Publish LLC is run for authors by authors. The staff of Star Publish is right there with our authors with our own books.  The only difference is we are in the lead for our authors, fighting the jungle of the business and carving the paths for all who join our team.

 

T.C. McMullen

 

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History of Star Publish

Star Publish is the dream child of Margie K. Tovrea, aka Kristie Leigh Maguire. An award-winning, multi-published author in her own right, Kristie has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of publishing first hand with the publication of her own novels.  After enduring the difficulties of both traditional publishing and self publishing, Kristie saw a dire need for good publishers who were author-friendly. She decided to form her own publishing company.
 
Determined to build a publishing house that would produce quality books for other writers while helping them avoid some of the pitfalls of publishing that she had been through, Kristie founded Star Publish in March 2004. The main philosophy behind Star Publish from the beginning was to treat other authors the way Kristie would have liked to be treated while following her own publishing path with her books. Kristie was determined to give each author specialized and individual attention from the very beginning, and even after their book was released for publication. No author would be treated as just a number at Star Publish.
 
Kristie tapped into the vast network of the many publishing resources she had made along the way in her writing career and developed different publication packages to fit an author's budget, utilizing the best specialized talent for each step in the publishing process. The use of her talent network gave Star Publish the ability to provide authors the best possible book with a "One Stop Shop for Publication" philosophy.

Star Publish began to be known among those in the writing industry as a quality publishing house and a desirable place for authors to publish their works. The growth of Star Publish was way beyond Kristie’s wildest dreams. While small publishers all around were rising and falling, Star continued to grow.

In July 2006, Kristie hired Janet Elaine Smith as its Marketing Director. Janet was the brainchild behind the Shooting Star Books Program, a very effective marketing program for the Star authors. Due to Janet’s diligence of calling the bookstores, Star books began showing up on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, and independent bookstores across the nation. Star Publish was the first publishing house using the print-on-demand methodology of publishing to have its books approved for stocking on the shelves of Borders bookstores nationwide.

In January 2008, Kristie passed the controls of the Starship to T.C. McMullen, a woman who has worked as a freelancer with Star from the very beginning of the Company. Kristie remains with Star Publish as both Publishing Consultant and an author. Although leadership of Star Publish has changed, the principles remain the same.  Star Publish is run by authors, for authors—and that will never change.

 
Star Publish LLC * P.O. Box 122 * Loretto, PA 15940