Greeting earthlings. We bring you tidings of peace….
After considerable thought and talking with some people who’s opinion I trust, I am on the verge of creating a new name, a new imprint, for our books. In case you are wondering I have talked with Jeff Gerke, the founder of Marcher Lord Press, and he agrees it is a good idea.
If you can weigh in, please answer the following survey and give your opinion on some choices: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TQS9K9W
The survey will take only a minute or two.
There are a couple factors that have gone into this conversation:
- The initials MLP is becoming widely known as meaning My-Little-Pony. There is even a documentary about Bronies…men who like MLPs.
- Whenever I have said “Marcher Lord Press” to someone outside the writing industry and Christian Speculative Fiction community, they raise an eyebrow and say “what?” and make me repeat the name a couple times. And then I can tell they wonder what that means.This, in effect, is weak branding. Within our communities we understand because Jeff Gerke did a great job selling the value of the imprint. But beyond our core, there is little recognition.
- If we make this change, now is the time. We are getting new covers finalized for the Fall season, and will soon be approaching key retail accounts with our new titles. It would be terribly confusing to start down one path and then switch later.
- I had contemplated making this change prior to buying the company. But a day or two before the sale closed I thought I’d have enough on my plate so tabled the idea. Over the last month it has become apparent that a change might be a good thing to help reboot the franchise.
- It will give me an excuse to refresh the web site with some new design looks.
Many factors go into a name change. a) The “radio test” – will it be something that can be heard and remembered correctly? b) Availability. Many great ideas for the name cannot be used because they have already been taken by another company. c) Does it reflect the type of books published within the Speculative Fiction genre?
Thanks for your continued support!
Steve Laube
