On the 1st of September 2021, the participants of the Bridging Literary Divides programme at Arkbound enjoyed meeting with Francesca T. Barbini from Luna Press. Francesca owns her own publishing house in Edinburgh. Here are a few of her inspirational quotes from that session:
(about the annual Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook) ‘…When I first read that book, there were two things that immediately made me think “oh that’s obvious, why would they say that”. The first one was, before you contact a publisher, check their website, do look at the submission page. The second one was to become familiar with what they publish. And initially, I thought “is that because they want us to buy their books?”, but after almost 7 years working on the other side, I can tell you that the majority of rejections comes from the fact that I still sometimes receive gardening books [laughs].’
‘I have virtually no free time. What I would certainly say is that you need to be clear with what you want to do. For example, my aim is to be an excellent small press. I don’t need to compete with anyone. This is me, this is Luna, and the fact that since 2015, we have won 6 awards and were shortlisted 25 times shows that even if you’re small, you can do it.’
‘Never compare yourself to that 2% of mega famous authors out there. Start within your world. If you start to appear in smaller presses, magazines, etc., then the bigger ones may start to notice you.’
‘I would love to see more submissions that deal with disability and where the person is not immediately magically cured by some sort of technique. We need real people in our stories.’
If you have any questions about Luna Press, email Francesca at lunapress@outlook.com or visit the Luna Press website
If you have any questions about the project or Arkbound, contact Matisse Lefebvre at matisse@arkfound.org
ML