Where did it all begin
—Vinspire Publishing
A little over twenty years ago, Vinspire Publishing began with a different name at a kitchen table with four women who wanted to bring back Retro Romances. We all watched movies from the early years, and we wanted to celebrate that in our books. So on February 14, 2004, we began as Vintage Romance Publishing.
Our website was in black and white, and our tagline was “Reminisce with us.” And for four years, we published books every month that were set in some of our favorite times—the thirties, forties, and fifties. But we began to see that we were turning away good stories because of the time period. So we opened our doors a little wider to welcome even more Romance, and eventually, mysteries and humor. To reflect our change, we renamed our company Vintage Reflections Publishing.
More years passed, and we moved away from titles only set in vintage times, accepting a little of everything, including young adult novels, children’s books, and nonfiction devotionals. That called for another name change, which is how we ended up with Vinspire Publishing. And that will be the last one.
As the years have passed, we’ve all grown older, moving into our silver years, and some of the grays we now have can be attributed to Vinspire as the challenges have been many. Though all four of us came from professional backgrounds and two of us were published authors, we still had a lot of learning to do when it came to the publishing world. The first three years were the bumpiest, and there were even discussions about closing the company because we weren’t sure we were doing a service to our authors. But then a success would come along, and we’d decide to hang in for a little while longer.
Literary Awards
Then even more achievements happened. Our titles began receiving awards from Moonbeam Children’s Awards, Readers’ Favorite Awards, Independent Authors’ Awards, and Catholic Arts and Letters, to name a few. Some were finalists in prestigious awards such as the American Fiction Christian Writers’ Carol Awards and the INSPY Awards. The reviews came in from the Library Journal, Booklist, Kirkus, Midwest Book Reviews, RT Book Reviews, and more.
And some of our authors have gone on to bigger careers in the industry, selling upwards of 2,000,000 titles. Yet, we’ve remained a small publishing house, and we often get asked why.
We’ve never had a desire to grow beyond our means. We recognized our limitations early on and chose to keep our focus small so we could give our authors one-on-one attention. If we had a stable of hundreds of authors, we would not be able to connect with them on such a level, and I think we would miss that.
We’re a family-friendly publisher, and by that, I mean we don’t publish books that have profanity or crude humor. We even have a family-friendly statement on our website so every author looking to submit to us knows in advance what we will accept and what we won’t. We’ve only wanted to publish books that every family member could read, no matter their age.
Now in our 21st year, we’re focusing on historical fiction novels with or without romantic elements, and we’re looking for stories based on real-life events or little-known historical events. Whether it’s a middle grade story or a new adult, we’re willing to review it as long as it meets our guidelines and has some history.
As far as our authors go, though, we will always review any title they’d like to submit to us, even if we’re not currently acquiring that genre because our authors are one of the reasons we’re still going after twenty years. So we’ll never close the door to them. We might not end up accepting their latest submission, but we will always give it a read.
Any writer who is looking to submit to Vinspire Publishing needs to be willing to take part in the publishing journey. We never ask for money from our authors, only their time. They should be committed to spreading the word about their books even if they don’t have social media. That’s not a requirement for us. An author can choose to focus on their local area if they wish, but we do ask that they participate in their own career growth in some way.
And we’ll do our part as well. We want each one of our authors to succeed and not just with us. We don’t expect our authors to put all their eggs in one basket. If this is meant to be a career path for them, we’re just one leg of it. We’re happy when our authors continue on their journey toward publishing success, and we’re glad we got to be a small part of that journey.
Editor’s Note: We received notice just after publishing this guest essay that Vinspire has closed its doors. Sad to see this women’s publishing house close, but if you are looking for a women-led publisher, please see this article for other options.
