Nicola Martinez is the senior editor for the White Rose line, the Christian inspirational imprint of The Wild Rose Press.She has been with the company since shortly after its inception in 2006. Before moving into fiction, Nicola was a magazine and newspaper editor.

The Wild Rose Press was started on May 1, 2006, by two writing critique partners, RJ Morris and Rhonda Penders.

Their premise for Wild Rose Press was to provide a “kinder and gentler” publishing company where authors would be treated with respect, concern, and understanding. RJ and Rhonda wanted a publishing company that didn’t make authors wonder what was happening with their manuscripts. They also believed that no one should ever again receive a form rejection letter. If the manuscript was not something the company could use, every writer who sent a query would receive a personal, prompt, and courteous letter of rejection explaining exactly why the manuscript wasn’t accepted and what the author could do to improve it. If an author was to receive a contract, the process would be as efficient as possible, and the author would be kept in the loop with communication every step along the way. An author would never have to wait for days, weeks, or months to hear a response from her editor. Communication was to be one of the key strengths of the company.

Almost three years later, they have successfully fulfilled their goals, and over 500 authors have been published at The Wild Rose Press. A staff of close to fifty includes a Graphic Arts Department, Production Department, Proofreading, Marketing and, of course, Editing. We take care of authors, treating them as the true team players they are. Editing is run by Rhonda Penders, and production is handled by RJ Morris and her staff. In August 2007, The Wild Rose Press was a recognized publisher of the RWA (Romance Writers America). This distinction indicates that the company is upstanding, pays royalties promptly and on a regular basis, and is not a vanity or subsidy publishing house. No authors have made any complaints against the company; in fact, the complete opposite has occurred. Authors love the experience of working with the editors at The Wild Rose Press.

Books over 65,000 words are released in both print and ebook form. Anything less than 65K is available as an ebook at a variety of distributors, including Amazon Kindle, Sony Ebook store, and Fictionwise, among others. Printed books can be purchased through www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, Target.com, and they can be ordered by libraries, bookstores through such distributors as Bakers and Taylor and Ingram.

“The Garden,” as it is affectionately called, is a wonderful, warm Web site that carries books in fourteen separate subgenres, all with various rose names. The inspirational line is White Rose, which is run by Senior Editor Nicola Martinez, holds to strict guidelines of what is and isn’t acceptable within that line. While we will publish some titles that might be considered “edgy” according to regular CBA guidelines, with her team of three editors, Ms. Martinez works hard to bring readers entertaining, quality stories that also glorify Christ by upholding a strict code of Christian values. Within the White Rose line, we publish all romance subgenre—contemporary, historical, romantic suspense/mystery, and so on.

In late 2008, we became aware that some Christian readers and authors were reluctant to visit our catalogue site because of some of the non-Christian covers that may appear on the front page as new titles our other lines are released. Because of this, we created a White Rose portal at www.whiterosesbooks.com. This site features links to guidelines, other information, and a direct link to the White Rose page in our catalogue. In this way, Christian visitors can avoid the non-Christian content on our site.

The Wild Rose Press is always interested in reviewing new manuscripts from published or unpublished authors. Writers should submit a query and a brief synopsis to queryus@thewildrosepress.com. No attachments—simply embed the query and synopsis into the e-mail and indicate the story length and what line the writer is targeting. The query will be then directed to the senior editor on the line for which it is intended. If you have questions regarding our White Rose titles, please feel free to direct them to Nicola Martinez at nmartinez [at] thewildrosepress dot com.