We are a very small (but mighty) team. No, seriously. We have five people “in-house” (though, we also work with freelancers for cover art, illustrations, and some editorial work) with nearly thirty years of combined experience in the publishing industry (indie and traditional). We do not sit on your rights like a lot of publishers do, and we do not place all of the marketing and advertising on our authors like a lot of publishers do.
In our first “official” year, we brokered audiobook deals for fifty-three titles for our authors with Tantor Media (one of the industry’s top independent audiobook publishers). That means nearly every single one of our authors has received an audiobook deal for their series or single-title book. All of the books we’ve published since January 2024 have appeared on Amazon’s Hot New Releases in some of their respective categories and some have hit the Amazon Best Sellers lists in some of their respective categories, some have hit these lists during their pre-order period. Almost all of our authors’ print books have hit the top 100 on Ingram’s Best Sellers lists in some of their respective categories. We are working nearly every day to sell even more subsidiary rights for our authors. We have a lot of incredible things in the works and we are just getting started! We are so excited to see what else is to come in the future for all of us.
You might not believe it but… we only work for commission at Harbor Lane Books. Yes, that means we only earn an income if our authors’ books are selling. So, when we say our authors’ success is our success, we mean every word of it. We want your book(s) to be successful and we do all that we are able to do to make that happen, however, your book’s success depends on you as the author as well. While we do not require you to market or advertise your book(s), we strongly encourage you to do so if you’re able to as we are a team.
We know this is a business. Just like you, though…we are humans, not machines. We all have families and some of us (this includes our freelancers) have full-time jobs outside of the work we do here at Harbor Lane. We are not a huge company with hundreds or even tens of employees who can pick up the slack if someone gets sick or has an emergency. Mistakes are bound to happen. We are a small independent digital publisher and, believe it or not, mistakes happen quite often with the Top 5 publishers and their imprints as well (we know this from personal experience), but we believe that every problem has a solution and we will work with our authors to figure it out as quickly as possible.
This is why we operate the way we do–we are as flexible as possible with all “deadlines”, we don’t require you to market your book(s), and we try to be as collaborative as possible. We know life happens and sometimes you won’t be able to meet a deadline, sometimes you might not be able to afford to spend money on advertising or marketing, some of you may have social anxiety or something else that prevents you from being able to post on social media or have book signings, etc. and we know you have a vision for your book and we want to do everything we are capable of to make that vision come to fruition.
We made this author portal because we get a lot of emails each week with many of the same questions and this takes time away from us working on things behind the scenes not only for your book(s) but other HLB authors’ book(s) as well. We want to get as much information to you as possible because we know there’s a lot that goes into being a debut author and even a seasoned author with a new company. If you still have questions/concerns after looking through the author portal, we will always try to answer and address any questions/concerns you might have, email us and expect a response within 10 business days. Our business days are Monday through Thursday unless we are closed for our summer break or winter break. If you do not hear from us within 10 business days, please send another email as the first one may not have gone through. If your question/concern can be answered in the author portal, we will direct you back here where the answer can be found.
At the end of the day, we’re all in this together and we’re so happy to be on this journey with you. We’re truly grateful you chose us to share your blood, sweat, and tears with and trust us to publish your book(s).
Harbor Lane Books 