Kingdom Books LLC is an independent editing and publishing company. Behind the company is a team of two people, Alyssa Markins and Chi Obasi. Alyssa has already provided editing services for a vide range of people, from graduating medical students to bloggers. She is working on her own novel, which she will publish in 2021. Next to these, she is learning about the publishing industry, building her author platform and running her Etsy store. Alyssa has a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Arts in Education from Vanguard University. Chi is the strategic mind, who is helping the Kingdom Books authors thrive in their book sales. Since the age of 7, when she wrote her first book, Chi is constantly writing. Next to her years of experience in marketing and sales, Chi has a Bachelor of Science in Business Management.   

If you want to know more about Kingdom Books:

https://www.kingdombookspublishing.com/

The interview

1.  Can you tell me about Kingdom Books LLC? What are the most important things to know about it?

Yes! We’re an independent, hybrid publishing company that seeks to help authors -- and people who don’t quite know that they’re authors -- get their message out into the world. To us, a publishing company should be more than just a glorified marketing firm, so we’ve developed clear processes around walking our authors through any and every part of the publishing process-- from first draft production, to editing, to final publication and marketing.

2. Since how long are you in business?

I first came up with the idea for Kingdom Books in Fall 2019. I officially made it an LLC in October 2019, and brought on my business partner, Chi Obasi, early on in 2020. Technically it’s been in business for just over a year now, but I didn’t really get much done with it until Chi joined me. :) 

3. What is your vision about the ideal submission? 

It totally depends on the service. We offer several different types of services for authors ranging from consultation, to editing, to publishing. On our website, we have surveys for initial submissions in all of those categories. From there, if we think we’d be a good fit to help the author, we follow up with more questions about the author’s vision for their book.

4. How long the manuscript has to be? Do you prefer single novels, or trilogies, series?

At this time, we’re publishing full length novels (so no short stories, or other types of publications like a thesis), but whether or not it’s a standalone, or part of a series, doesn’t matter to us.

5.  Do you accept submissions from any genre, or you specialize only to certain ones? If yes, to which ones?

We do accept submissions from any genre, but won’t necessarily go forward publishing every submission if we feel we wouldn’t be a good fit for the author. Having said that, Chi and I are both big fans of the Fantasy and Personal Development genres. 

6. How many authors and titles did you publish so far?

We published our first product, The Writer’s Accountability Planner just this year! We each have fantasy novels that are set to release in 2021, and are working with an additional author who is on a flexible timeline, and will most likely be ready to publish in 2022. 

7. What services do you provide, as a publisher?

We do everything from separate first draft, publishing timeline, and book marketing consulting, to development, copy, and final proof edits, to actually publishing the book. We wanted our company to be able to help author’s at all stages of the writing process, so if someone wants to edit with us, but not publish, we have that as an option. If someone is just getting their feet wet in the writing world and they want consulting/ strategy on how to write their book with more information on the different publishing routes that are available, we provide that as well. A lot of our services are very customizable. 

8. There are any topics, typical plots, or character types, which you prefer, also which you not advice to submit? 

We won’t publish erotica or books with topics that come from a place of hatred. Other than that, we read through every submission and evaluate on an individual basis if we think we’re the best publisher to help the author achieve their publishing goals. 

9. Do your authors retain all the rights to their book?

Yes! We collect a 10% royalty on book sales, but the author retains rights to their creative works and ideas. If they decide they want to pull their book, and shop it to another publisher after publishing with us, they are totally free to do so. 

10. Do you accept submission? If yes, what do authors need to know, before they send their manuscript to you?

Yes! All of our submissions start with an initial survey that can be found on our website www.kingdombookspublishing.com You just have to click the button under the service/ type of publishing you're interested in, and the survey pops up. We do this as opposed to accepting queries because it helps us to better evaluate if we would be a good fit for the author. 

Thank you for your answers! And you, dear Reader, what would you ask from the team of Kingdom Books LLC? 🙃