Meet Fran Orenstein

February 25, 2019
Hosted by Mary Nickum

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Guest Information

Episode Description

Our Guest is Saguaro Books author, Fran Orenstein. Fran is an award-winning author and poet, wrote her first poem at age eight and submitted a short story to a magazine at age twelve. She wrote professionally and academically until she retired and began to write a variety of fiction and poetry. Two historical Young Adult romance adventure novels, The Calling of the Flute and The Spice Trader’s Daughter. In paperback, an eBook and a graphic novel, Fat Girls from Outer Space is a contemporary ‘tween novel on bullying and self-image. Finally, The Shadow Boy Mysteries, a mystery series for kids 8-13. (All published by Saguaro Books, LLC)

Saguaro Books Radio Hour

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The Saguaro Books Radio Hour is about all aspects of publishing middle grade and young adult fiction. We discuss writing, editing, promotion, value of critique groups, interview some of our authors, have readings from some of our titles, interview local authors who have not published with us and interview other publishers of comparable size.

Mary Nickum

I am an author and publisher. My idea to found Saguaro Books, LLC resulted from the difficulties I experienced as a first-time author seeking a publisher. I realized there needs to be a publisher who works directly with authors, excluding agents. Saguaro Books, LLC is just such a publisher. We work specifically with authors who have never published before. We carefully look at each submission for writing style and story development. We work with the authors we select to make the work the best it can be. We use a standard publishing model based on a contract and pay royalties twice per year. We offer a twenty percent royalty, higher than any of the larger publishers. We have twenty-eight titles in our published catalog, with five more coming this year. We were selected as a PAL publisher with the Society of Children’s Writers and Illustrators. PAL means “Published and Listed.”

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