Chapter 3 - What's In a Name

Rebeca delves into the process of naming "Rebeca Books" and all of the trials, tribulations, and downright disgust with the English language that entails. All of the items on the pre-holiday to-do list that she thought were done were, perhaps, not as done as she at first believed.

Last, but certainly not least, introducing the first new hire at Rebeca Books, E. Danielle Butler, who is coming aboard as Rebeca Books' new Acquisitions Editor. A passionate and award-winning writer herself, Danielle has long-helped authors hone their works, championing storytelling across the nonprofit, arts, and education sectors. Danielle’s primary work at Rebeca Books is to identify and acquire business and romance titles written by and about women 40 and over. We do not require agency representation for project consideration. Whether you are an agent or an author, feel free to reach out to Danielle directly. Her email address is [e-mail].

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
Welcome to the third episode of RaisingRebecca Books The Birth of a Publishing House.
This is the audio story of meRebecca Sites, building a traditional royalty
paying publishing house from the ground up, told to you as it unfolds.
And heavens has there been some unfoldingalready in this new year. Is your
twenty twenty four off to a fabulousstart to because I am loving the energy

(00:35):
and activity so far. But beforeI tell you the main reason that I'm
so excited this week, I shouldprobably tell you about how I ended twenty
twenty three with the pretty big oops. You're listening to Raising Rebecca Books The
Birth of a Publishing House on theOne Sea Story Network one CEA is made

(00:55):
possible in part by the support ofthe following sponsor. Okay, let's start

(01:18):
with the embarrassing part. I mayhave screwed up. Okay, Okay,
not may I did? I did? If you follow me on TikTok,
then you know that I got alittle ahead of my skis in thinking that
I'd found the right printer partners forthis venture, and how that happened is
not fun to admit. In thelast episode, I shared the interview questions
that I posed to each printer toensure our corporate values aligned. They were

(01:44):
Do they have women in ownership orleadership? Are they LGBTQI friendly? Do
they responsibly source their materials? Whatabout their shipping policies? Do they try
to lessen their carbon footprint? Andbased on those answers, I believed that
I'd found exact actually the right toprinters, one domestic and one foreign.
I literally crossed the to do itemof find printers off my list. As

(02:09):
boxes filled with samples of their workbegan to fill my office, I pushed
them to the side and I focusedon other to do items. And then
finally, just before the holiday break, I finished the last item on my
list, pushed away from my deskand turned and that's when I saw all
of the boxes that were scattered acrossmy floor. Oh yeah, I thought,

(02:32):
I need to go through those samplesthat the printer sent. So I
set up my phone to record anunboxing video for TikTok. This would be
exciting, right, printer samples.It's gonna be amazing. Everybody's gonna love
this. And then I opened theboxes. Now again, if you follow
me on TikTok, you might beconfused right now, because no, you

(02:52):
never did see that unboxing video.That would be because I deleted it.
In one instance, the box containedproducts that were so dissimilar from what Rebecca
Books will be printing that I wonderedif maybe the wrong samples were sent to
me. Another box it had youknow, like okay products, so so
products, but nothing was in therethat wowed me. A cold panic began

(03:15):
to set in. This was notwhat I had been expecting, not in
the least. So I kept openingboxes all the way until the last one,
and with that last one, Ihad paid art. Inside this printer's
box, I found a stack ofbooks in the exact format, cover designs

(03:35):
and finishes, and even the paperchoices that we intend the quality was outstanding.
Were I to use this printer,I would not have one single worry
about the end result. I eagerlygrabbed the notebook that stays to my right
hand throughout the day. In thatnotebook is where I take notes on every
phone call, every video meeting,every everything that I do through the day.

(03:58):
It is my brain. I flippedthrough and scanned the notes from my
meeting with this particular printer's rep andthen I started over and I read them
carefully, but it didn't matter howmany times I looked. The information I
sought was not there. Nothing aboutthere being women in ownership, partial or
otherwise, and only one reference toa woman in upper management across the entire

(04:23):
company. My heart sank. Thankfully, my notes did include affirmation that this
company practices eco friendly sustainable sourcing fortheir materials and they are LGBTQIA welcoming and
affirming. So I rewrote settle onprinters on my to do list. I

(04:44):
have some homework to do before Ican be truly settled on this. I
have more questions to ask, moresamples to request, and you know what,
that's okay. Nothing about this company, remember, is being brushed or
forced. Our first line of booksisn't slated until of twenty twenty five.
There is time to get the foundationlaid, and that includes confidently partnering with

(05:08):
the necessary vendors to make Rebecca Booksoperate like a well oiled machine. So
now that I've confessed my misstep,can we get to the good part?
Drum roll please? We have anew acquisitions editor. On next week's episode,

(05:39):
you will hear directly from the Fantasticfemale from Atlanta, E Danielle Butler.
A passionate and award winning writer herself. Danielle has long helped authors hone
their works, championing storytelling across thenonprofit arts and education sectors. She's a
connector, y'all, and not justbecause she has a master's in business management,

(06:00):
but because she has a track recordof connecting the dots between people,
purpose, and community. The speakersshe's worked with see an average increase in
their annual revenue of thirty thousand dollars. Are my business writers listening to me?
Danielle and I share a driving interestin producing content that provokes change and

(06:21):
inspires good action. She's worked oncannabis record expungement and raised awareness and funding
to address food insecurity that is ravagingmarginalized communities. She serves on the boards
of Sineosis Ink and Project Good Ink, and she's a volunteer with the Atlanta
Fringe Festival for Kids Fringe. Ifyou're a writer, you might have set

(06:43):
it on her workshops at any ofmany writers' conferences throughout the US, including
the annual Women in Publishing Summit.I told you she was fantastic, didn't
I? And now She's bringing herskills to Rebecca Books. How amazing is
this. Danielle's primary work here isto identify and acquire business and romance titles
written by and about women forty andover. Now, we do not require

(07:06):
agency representation for project consideration, sowhether you are an agent or an author,
feel free to reach out to Danielledirectly. Her email address is in
this episode's description. To see whatelements should be included in your book proposal,
just visit Rebecca books dot com andscroll down. Remember there's only one
C in my Rebecca. Oh andone last thing about Danielle. She turns

(07:30):
forty this summer. Yep, weare welcoming this wonderful woman into our forty
and over fun and that party isgoing to be epic. But you know
that's revelry for another day. Today, please join me in celebrating this incredible
news for Rebecca Books. Oh mygosh, you'd go a loved anyway.
Now, one more thing that Iwanted to share with you before I let

(07:51):
you go, and that is alittle bit of the backstory on how this
house came to be named Rebecca Booksand have an IRIS as its logo.
When I said about naming the line. I first tried to find a word
that means wise mature woman, aswould any woman in the year of our
Lord twenty twenty three. I googledwords that mean wise mature woman, and

(08:13):
I got back words like prophetess,seer, soothsayer, diviner, fortune teller,
oracle, mystic, which, okay, are lovely words, but none
of them were the right fit fora line of romance and business books written
by and featuring women forty and over. I mean, a twenty year old
could be any of those words.So I altered my search to words that

(08:35):
mean older woman. And here's whereI began to get a little annoyed.
The results were dame, mother,grandamme, dowager, biddy, grandmother,
lassie, damsel, frail, do, debt, wench aunt, auntie,

(08:58):
and even phrases like member of thegentle sex and member of the fairer sex.
So then I tried one more search, this time words that mean old
woman. The results, Oh,you're going to love this pensioner, babushka,
old, dear, trouble and strife, matriarch, crone, hag nag

(09:26):
wench, dusty miller. Looking atthe words, I was struck by the
realization that the only positive sounding wordswere the ones whose definitions included a family
element grandmother, grandma. The onesthat described an old woman outside of her
family made her sound awful hag nagwench. I closed my laptop in frustration,

(09:52):
and I thought more about the problemat hand. It was time to
call in reinforcements. I gathered mytwo teenagers and my husband, and I
put the problem to them, andfor your listening pleasure, I then made
them come here into the studio andrecreate that conversation as close to verbatim as
we could remember. Y'all help me. I need a name for the publishing
house. Okay, what if youcome up with so far nothing good?

(10:16):
I need something that says wise maturewoman. Hmmm, sounds too much like
wise guy, and the europe wouldprobably be expensive. What means why is
in other languages for mature women?Nothing? I looked it up. The
words either are awful like hag nagshrew that kind of thing, or they're
based in our relationship to a malegrandmother, auntie, stuff like that.

(10:39):
I couldn't find great words that letus stand on our own. Matron.
You know why don't you just nameit after yourself. I mean there is
precedent. Simon and Schuster is namedafter its founders, HarperCollins, so sites
books, sites limited, sites,it's limited something like that. Like the

(11:01):
problem is that our last names arenot always our last names. Like I've
had multiple last name. I haven'teven had this last Yeah, like I
haven't even had this last name forhalf my life. Our last name changes
if we get married or remarried ordivorced or anything. That there's a reason
we do. Not women, wetend to not name our you know,
companies, our last name. Itit's different for women. It's just different.

(11:26):
I think it's difficult, doesn't ita little bit patriarchy? Yeah?
Well, you know, never mind, No, what I mean wait wait
wait, let us have that nameso something. It's gonna be catching,

(11:48):
like like Rebecca Books. I likethat. Oh that's gonna ring to it,
doesn't it? Okay? Yeah?But is that arrogant? Like after
there's like Simon and Schuster and allthem were arrogant for naming it after themselves.
Okay, now Rebecca Books, Yeah, okay, Rebecca Books. Okay,

(12:09):
dude, you can totally put thaton a t shirt and said it
look great or oh, I knowBecky Books. M know that'll. So
that's how Rebecca Books became the name. As for the Iris and our logo,
remember what I told you back inepisode one that I grew up on
a farm in Tennessee. My familyworked that land for well over two hundred

(12:33):
years. I may be a Neapolitanhappily enjoying the beauty of life in Naples,
Florida now, but Tennessee has beenmy family's home too long for it
to not always have a piece ofmy heart and mind. And guess what
the Tennessee state flower is. Yep, it's an Iris. And it just
so happens that the name of theIris comes from Greek mythology. In that

(12:54):
language, the word translates to rainbow. The flower is a representation of the
god of the rainbow, who wouldsend messages from Heaven to Earth on her
arc She was seen as a friendlycompanion to female souls who are on their
way to heaven. What a lovelyidea. The symbolism of the flower itself
changes depending on the color, butits overarching meanings are wisdom, hope,

(13:18):
and positive change, which are characteristicsthat I deeply desire to be emblematic of
Rebecca Books. There is so muchmore that has kicked itself into gear already.
This year book projects about love inall its colorful and fabulous forms,
as well as business journeys that inspireand educate more team members to help get

(13:39):
the word out and build this communityof wise, wonderful women, influencers and
partners who are hearing about the workhere, and they're coming in the room
with that magical question, how canI help? It's happening every single morning.
I now wonder what's going to happentoday? And can I just tell
you the answer? Keep making megrin? Well, I will so long

(14:03):
as you keep listening. You've beenlistening to Raising Rebecca Books, the Birth
of a Publishing House from the onesStory Network. Subscribe to the show wherever
you get your podcasts and learn moreat Rebecca Books dot com. That's r

(14:26):
E B E c A Books dotcom, The one C Story Network for

(15:00):
the love of stories.