I have the pleasure this evening of doing an interview where the main focus is a new magazine, CPQ Quarterly, the latest endeavor of Cobblestone Press. So please join Fallen Angel Reviews in welcoming Sable Grey from Cobblestone Press.

Thank you so much for giving Cobblestone the opportunity to talk about CPQ Magazine. We are really excited about this new quarterly publication and are equally excited to be interviewed by Fallen Angel Reviews.

I’m sure the first question on everyone’s mind is what was the driving force in the creation of your magazine CPQ Quarterly? Did you notice a demand from your customers? See a need in the e-book industry to have more of a connection with readers?

Deanna and I came up with the idea of a reader/writer magazine about a year ago when discussing our plans of business growth and world domination. Our goal was to create an affordable interactive magazine that appealed to readers of romance and erotic romance, but that also offered opportunities of promotion and publication for authors while continuing our uphold our standards of class and quality.

The needs of the industry and of the readers are all part of what led us to creating this type of magazine. Romance is the highest selling genre of fiction and continues to grow yearly. This basically means, readers want more, more, more and the industry wants to provide it for them. A magazine that connects readers with what they want, writers with the readers and others in the industry to both is not a crazy and wild idea but a logical solution that fulfills the needs of everyone.

We at Cobblestone Press are just happy to have the resources and opportunity to provide a magazine that can do that.

Your first issue was just released this summer… let’s back up to the planning stages. After it was decided that yes, we’re going to do this, create a magazine and become one of the leaders in this area, how did you go about designing what your magazine layout would be? I know you can’t give out CPQ secrets but book writing and magazine publishing seems like two opposite spectrums of the publishing industry.

The formula for success in any business is no secret. You research your industry, target your audience, find out what they want, and then you give it to them.

Our business is romance so when designing CPQ and deciding what features we wanted to offer, we kept in mind that our audience is romance readers and romance writers. Ultimately, it breaks down to three questions that must be answered with every issue of CPQ:

1. What do romance readers want?
2. What do romance writers want?
3. How can we use this magazine to unite the romance industry?

Readers want fiction. They want to meet authors. They want to interact and to be able to find the books they are interested in. Thus we created clickable advertisements that would take them directly to the author’s websites.

Authors want to acquire more readers. They want affordable advertisements to promote their books. They want articles and interviews that relate to their craft and the success of their publications. So we give them agent interviews, spotlight websites and offer articles that can help them grow as writers, and offer opportunities to advertise that work with any budget.

Lastly, we can unite this industry by providing fiction, advertising, interviews, features, and articles and then offering the magazine at an affordable price. Everyone benefits.

The design of the magazine was the tricky part. We wanted something that matched our website but that also had its own distinct look. Our goal was not to clutter every page with advertisements but to offer those advertisements without intruding on the features. I think we succeeded.

Since your magazine is a quarterly offering is this a “work as we go” project or have you outlined the magazine’s upcoming issues already?

It’s a little of both honestly. Our first three issues are our test to see if there is truly a market for this type of publication. We’ve seen magazine come and go over the years and did not enter the decision to give ours a shot blindly or with the naïve notion that we wouldn’t have to work at getting our magazine out there to those who would be interested. However, we certainly don’t want to be a success and have nothing to offer for the fourth issue.

That said our first issue was a huge success. We are already scheduling features into issues of 2009. Advertising is being reserved for issues well into next year so we know that keeping the advertising affordable was a good decision.

I looked over the current issue and noticed you interviewed authors, agents and even a cover model which I’m sure was a lot of fun. What were some of the challenges, if any, encountered when setting up this portion of the magazine?

Interviewing is never easy, as you know. Finding those to interview is not difficult but when interviewing someone you must ask the questions that the readers want to ask while giving the person a chance to promote themselves and their work. The interviews in CPQ are personalized – no general interview form to fill out. Each interview is given after research on that person and their career.

One part of the magazine I found really interesting was your reader review of a title from your catalog of available work. Will this become a regular feature readers can expect in future issues and how did you choose a reader to actually write the review?

Readers are rarely given a chance to talk about the books they love. We thought this kind of feature would give readers a voice about the books they’ve read and enjoyed and the opportunity to tell other readers “Hey, this one is definitely worth reading.” And since the publication of the first issue, we’ve had several readers email us with interest in participating.

But of course, before the first publication, we did have to have that first reader review. We approached one of our readers at Cobblestone Press who frequents our weekly chats and participates in every reader opportunity we offer and she immediately chose what book she wanted to review and jumped into it.

Is it possible for readers to submit a request to do a review on books already purchased to be featured in upcoming issues? If so can you tell our readers what the process would be and how they can contact you for further information?

Readers do not need to request to do reviews. They can just write the review and submit it to submissions@cobblestone-quarterly.com. The reader will be notified when and if their review is chosen to be featured in the magazine. The reader can review any book from our catalog of published titles.

To date what has been the response to CPQ Quarterly and has it met or exceeded your expectations for the new launch?

The response to our first issue of CPQ Magazine has been phenomenal. We have received emails from readers and authors since its publication in June about how impressed they were with the volume of information and with the layout. I think, because each issue only cost $1.50 many did not expect such a full bodied magazine.

We designed CPQ to hold enough advertisements that the magazine would pay for itself. Because the response from readers and authors has been so fabulous, we are able to keep the cost of the magazine low while providing a publication that is filled with great interviews (including the very popular cover model spotlight), amazing fiction, useful articles, and the quality that readers would expect from a more expensive magazine.

Not having had the pleasure of reading your magazine just yet, I’m curious if the fiction pieces showcased are full stories or excerpts of coming soon titles.

CPQ publishes short story mainstream, sensual, and erotic romances, meaning full stories with beginning, middle, and end. We look for well told stories, memorable characters, and a happily ever after ending.

We pay $50 per story upon acceptance so of course, we are very selective about which stories make it into the magazine. As with the books in our catalog, our readers should expect quality fiction when they open an issue of CPQ.

Will all your featured websites be related to the industry or can you see yourself branching out as your magazine continues to grow?

While we do have long term plans to branch out and expand, the main focus of Cobblestone Press is and will always be the romance industry. The featured websites in CPQ is meant to promote and spotlight those who continue to offer a resource or service to writers of romance. In June, our spotlight was on Critique Circle, a writing community for all genres including romance.

We also have The Blue Page Directory which features sites and their web addresses. These are sites that we have personally approved as fabulous resources for writers.

One last question, if your magazine becomes the next hot property in the e-book world can you see this becoming a subscription item and possibly mailed in print?

Yes and yes. We were willing to go all the way with CPQ upon the decision to create the magazine. While we watch the market and realize that the success in electronic format is key to our moving forward, we came prepared to give our readers what they want, how they want it, and for as long as they want it.

Cobblestone Press, thank you for taking time to sit down with me this evening so our readers could learn more about your new magazine. Before we part ways can you let us know where our readers can find additional information about your magazine?

The current issue of CPQ Magazine can be purchased for $1.50 at the Cobblestone Press website: http://www.cobblestone-press.com More about submissions, advertisements, and general information can be found at the CPQ Magazine website at http://www.cobblestone-quarterly.com


Interviewed by: Rachelle