Discussions On Publishing With The Red Cape Team

When we were approached by the Red Cape Publishing team to review the new short story collection “Six” by Mark Cassell, it was too good an opportunity to miss in what has become a series of blogs looking at different aspects of the media business. Taking time to ask questions about the publishers themselves and how the business was formed, is the growing presence and support of indie authors in the digital age.

Can you tell us more about Red Cape publishing and the services you provide? 

Thanks for having us! Red Cape Publishing was formed towards the end of 2018, initially as a brand name to cover a few things – my own writing, Leanne’s design work, and some author promo services we had begun to offer. Since then, the range of services has grown, we moved into publishing anthologies towards the end of 2019, and in 2020 began taking on other authors. It’s very much a family-run business, with even our children reviewing books on our website (age-appropriate, of course!). 

What was the motivation for starting your business and building the brand? 

Writing had always been a passion but a few years ago I never would have thought we’d be doing what we are. In 2016 I wrote my first novel (books available on Amazon), with no expectation that anyone would read it and no knowledge of what to do with it when it was finished! I went down the route of self-publishing, learned as much as I could, and put the book out there. At the time, Leanne and I were running a catering business but at Christmas 2016 she ended up in hospital for some time and was diagnosed with quite severe Crohn’s disease. This led to us closing the catering and taking a chance on my writing and building a book-related business from home. It hasn’t been easy and it’s taken a lot of work but the horror community has been great with advice and support and, we hope, we’ve been able to give help to a number of authors as well. 

Is there any advice you would give to aspiring entrepreneurs and potential authors out there looking to get published? 

Connecting with other people is a huge help. Most of the people we first connected with were through some promotional blogs we would run, spotlighting other people’s books. This was done purely to help writers gain a little more exposure and it’s something we still do, of course. Most people are incredibly supportive as so many of us are in the same situation and networking is key to building a following and reputation. 

Regarding getting published, do your research. Look at the presses who work in your genre, see who has open calls and what their other releases are like. Make sure your manuscript is as ready as you can make it. And if you’re submitting to an anthology call, ensure you’ve followed the guidelines. Around 10% of stories we receive get discarded immediately for silly things like having no name on, no title, or too far beyond or under the word count. 

What are the future plans of Red Cape Publishing and how can people get involved? 

Our releases are now scheduled into 2022 so there are many new books coming. We have been releasing a series of horror anthologies (The A-Z of Horror) and submissions for book nine close on May 31st, with book ten opening June 1st (Red Cape publishing submission page ). These are released every 8-10 weeks and see us through to early 2023! May 26th is our next release, and our fifth title from the talented Caroline Angel, Origin of Evil. In June we’ll be bringing out a new anthology (Castle Heights), a cosmic horror novella by Tim Mendees (Spiffing) and J is for Jack-O’-Lantern at the end of the month or the start of July. We have an art book with some flash fiction coming as a collaboration between myself and David Paul Harris (Demons Never Die), an epic dark fantasy from Antoinette Corvo (Appletown), and a trilogy of crime novels from David Owain Hughes. Not to mention my own half-finished books and the submissions we have for consideration. All in all, there is quite a lot on the way and it’s really exciting to be bringing it out. If anyone would like to look at our previous titles, there is a PDF catalog on the home page of our website and most titles are available on Audible as well. 

To learn more about Red Cape Publishing and its authors, or to support the business see:

Red Cape Publishing Website.

Red Cape Publishing Facebook.

Red Cape Publishing Twitter.

Red Cape Publishing Instagram.

Red Cape Publishing Patreon.

Red Cape Publishing Buy Me a Coffee.

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Upcoming Changes to The Lost Plan

With the new rules and mandates in place for England coming soon and those in Scotland already started, we are disappointed that it has meant we are going to have to make massive changes to the way we work now and how we will continue forward. In the coming weeks, we will be updating the websites and blogs to reflect changes to the business and our goals.

The Lost Stories will continue as it stands with the support of our various PR contacts and the JamesC website along with the Lost Creatives will be looking at how we can work within the rules and regulations outlined and taking the time over the next 14 days to talk with our remote teams in Nepal and India to discuss options. Our ultimate goals will not change and we will continue to work diligently and professionally in the capacity of media with new websites and extension to our business being set up including the registration of our production company that will be solely aimed at the Horror and Thriller market along with the fantastic team at HOD TV.

By 2021 we will be a completely different company within the media realms and pushing toward what is an old school method of working which we will reveal soon. While we put these changes in place we do have projects that we will be working on alongside our normal business and look forward to what the future has to offer.

It is time to start with a new way of looking at the business we are in and thinking differently to move into the future. Additional training is being looked at alongside the certification our creative director has taken for safe sets and makeup safety with Dermalogica., we are looking at production training short courses for the longterm benefit of the team.

Project Planning With Nepal Productions

We really do owe a debt of gratitude to our team in Nepal especially Digbijaya Bharati from the Nepal Film Production team, who has been patient during the lockdown and happy to continue working via Whatsapp so we can as a team which gets our work moving forward, not just with media but other elements and promotional avenues we are exploring. As our regular readers will be aware our plans are geared toward Intenet TV, in particular, the horror and Thriller genres with a sideline in the editorial market to boost marketing via social accounts and strategic placement of ads.

For us, it has become planning and strategy that allows us to focus our energies in new areas of business and develop further as a business although at heart we still love makeup work and our creative director JamesC is part and parcel of the ongoing plans, we are all on board with changes being made to the business and have some smaller elements such as the facecharts being brought back in (the JamesC facechart will be available again via his site soon).

We already have several scripts in play for development in the realm of TV and will be working on a range of new images and behind the scenes work while the weather is good and allows us flexibility, the new guidelines for production work will be a big part of how we move forward ensuring everyone involved is safe and the work is handled carefully.

As our previous blog has stated we are going to also look at skills development for our in-house team to allow us to multitask and keep the crew requirements to a minimum and safe.

*Change in how the media and fashion industry will be massive and we are doing all we can to ensure that our staff is safe, the team (both the UK and South Asian) are up to date on the latest changes.

Marketing and the Lost Concept

While we have been a little quiet over the last few days it has not stopped the work thanks in part to Facebook and Whatsapp we were able to continue meetings and even showcase some of our past work in line with our creative director and founder JamesC. The crux of much of this has been discussing marketing strategies. Many people are unaware of the pages and sites involved in our marketing just for the Lost Concept and our core team and we are now in a place where we feel that the sites and pages (in most cases) are sufficiently “liked” enough that we are collating all the backlog of work into a folio of work and with certain magazines offering open submissions of single images (we are going for exclusive but this is not a requirement for many digital magazines) and once the lockdowns are sufficiently lifted we do have plans to do a full marketing campaign with more work built around the Lost Boys and Lost Girls concept as outlined in the Lost Project blog.

Marketing is something we are really keen on and we do work with our partners in Nepal (the Nepal Film Production team), on campaigns and this will be revised again at the end of this month in line with changes to the market as it stands.

One of the main reasons we are looking at this now is we have time, the blogs are keeping us busy along with various other elements but like many in the creative fields, we really are keen to get back to our real work. The focus of our upcoming campaigns will start with the two lost sites and then the actual artists who are working on the creative side such as actor Raj Srivastava and of course JamesC.

The Changing Face of The Lost Business

While we are restricting our movements and only going out when we absolutely need to, we decided to look at the future and what will become of business as time goes on. It is fairly positive and we can see already changes to the market that will be making massive waves to how we view the media world.

There will key aspects of the current climate we will be maintaining such as having smaller shoots and focusing on story rather than just an image which we have talked about before but never seemed to find the time, from a photographic stance it really is interesting working out how we can do this and still have a cohesive narrative.

On a film and TV side, our favorite writers are working from home happily and have taken it under advisement that we want thrillers and horror that can and should be creatable on a smaller budget to fit with the requirements of the current market, will offer us quick turn around for shoots and of course minimal cast and crew requirements which will be a challenge in and of itself that we as a team we look forward to. The Lost Concept is something we are immensely proud of and can see the potential to take our initial idea of moving The Lost Boys and The Lost Girls as a story for stills and to turn this into a storied TV series with a dark edge built around individual stories and characters.

In the interim, we are working on designs, talking to our remote teams as best we can, naturally, we are very worried about our Indian and Nepal contacts and wish them the best at this time of full lockdown in their countries. However, everyone is in good spirits and has been positive so far.

The future is something we cannot solidly control or predict but we do know that we will continue our work for as long as we can. We will finish this by asking that our readers stay safe and well, keep positive and we will all be back to work soon and entertaining the world.

Product Placement and Behind The Scenes

While we have been slow in going public with much of what we are doing, we are always working. Not just on the blog aspect but other elements and it has really started paying off for us in terms of a photo project and 2 short films with other aspects still in negotiation or set to be discussed soon.

In terms of the photo project, it has been split into different elements and lengthy calls and meetings have been held over the actual content in terms of how it will be shot, managed and promoted across the varying networks we have open to us and this took us down the path of product placement (which we are working through already and have a provisional interest for the editorial side from a designer in London).

Our creative director JamesC, has found a series of deals and offers with his preferred format of online magazines that will give us tear sheets and covers that will be promoted across the board, with a view to utilizing our resources in the designer realm and with our other contacts across South Asia at a later date, allow us to shoot editorials and submit with a higher percentage chance of publication with some careful structuring and planning at the creative director level.

Brushwork cosmetics code JamesC 10% discount

Something we are going to push is the “behind the scenes” element, capturing the team at work, focusing on the creative aspect because our talks are taking us down the line of makeup with options and avenues that we are keen to pursue heavily.

In the coming months, we will open this to allow for smaller packages and individual project support giving placement in the behind the scenes, in the projects themselves (for film and TV) and looking closely at building our own magazine.

The Lost Concept has been building slowly and we are really proud of what we have achieved and will be showcasing this in more detail soon with a series of new sites and public projects.

*featured image example of product placement is for Brushwork Cosmetics (promo code JamesC 10% off).

The Lost Creatives in 2020

In a short space of time, The Lost Creatives has become a major part f the Lost Narrative and we are really proud of what we have achieved to date. In 2020 we are looking forward to what will be a clean slate opportunity and taking the more strides toward achieving our creative goals.

We will be working on new and exciting projects with our affiliates and partners across the globe and making a concentrated effort to increase our marketing, expand on the narrative of professionals in the media sector. Our creative director is reopening his website as a portfolio only site and will continue in his capacity as the resident beauty blogger for The Lost Project and as our primary blogger as well as.

Expansion of the Lost Narrative is being worked on and we will be looking at bringing online (over the course of the year) an additional site that will become our home for film and TV, management services are also being addressed for the new year which will allow us a higher degree of control over how and where we are pushed as a brand.

Part of the expansion will include an increased and focused drive to work closely with our partners Nepal film production and of course HOD TV.

Both of whom we are really proud to be associated with on the film and TV side of our business. It is also worthy of note that World Fashion Media News will see more of our work in print and have exclusive access to the creative team for profiles etc.

In the coming year, The Lost Creatives will be pushed heavily and we will continue to work The Lost Narrative to showcase not just our creative team but the creativity and ingenuity of the media sector as a commercial entity.

Research and Planning

research and planning

We are just days away from the New Year (2020 is going to be huge) and our work has already started with blogs being prewritten and scheduled, stay tuned for a huge announcement, and we are now working on the next phase of our plans with a meeting lined up with one of our favorite indie film directors; Jim Manclark to discuss project development in TV and of course some new editorial behind the scenes and of course portfolio pieces for our creative directors new portfolio site.

Something we are really keen to get done is some projects designed specifically for the festival circuit and editorial submission as promotional material to help push the lost concept and of course, to promote our team as a whole.

Part of this will be a selection of small meetings and then a full-scale push through January to do the work. We are being selective about the work we do with planning and research being put in motion now. We are starting to add to the makeup artist library we have with new FX and character makeup books being added and a definite must-have that will be coming soon to our collection will be the book on out of the box FX.

From a purely creative stance, our plans are more commercial than artistic which ultimately what the business is all about.

Adding to the overall theme of change will be the addition of news sites and management services for the Lost concept already in the works allowing us to have a wider and more comprehensive business model and umbrella formation around the Lost Concept.

Over the next year, our goals are to create, commercialize and push a narrative of the media as a commercial art form.

The Office of Lost Creatives

We have been really working hard over the last few months designing, meeting with stylists and wardrobe staff and negotiating contacts that will come into full effect in the new year. Much of the work has been done in our home office with emails, WhatsApp messages and our social accounts being heavily used for international calls and messaging.

There are some really big announcements to come as our continuing work Nepal Film Production and they're associated businesses along with plans to shoot a TV series here in Scotland mid-2020.

Portfolio wise, the JamesC mua site will be reopened for the new year and we are working with James on updates and script choices for festival entries (micromania film festival we are coming). Naturally, we will be looking at the Himalayan film festival as well.

Something we are focused on getting done is more of the out of the box fx work to update our books and give some depth to the upcoming shoots we have planned and of course there is our beauty work which will be tied to creative director JamesC webstore with My Beauty Brand.

We are really excited about the prospects for 2020 and so grateful to all our supporters.

The Process of Consultation and Management At Lost Creatives

As we move ever closer to our goals for the end of the year with contracts being reviewed and an increase in our consultation work for production and other areas, it is interesting to see how our work is being viewed and see the key areas that we wanted to tackle being put into action.

To date, we have secured deals and partnerships with Italy (HOD TV) and Nepal, with further plans to create our own projects in 2020 with some of our business contacts in India such as actor and model Raj Srivastava who has become integral, alongside the team at Nepal Film production, to our overall goals.

Of course, we do have plans for the UK and in particular, Scotland where we will be shooting some of the new content for our website (hopefully by mid-December), it has been slower on that front than we would have liked but certainly positive as we can say that our goals and aspirations are being met in a time frame that is frankly speaking ahead of schedule in key areas.

As we have always maintained, we would prefer to have all the I’s dotted and t’s crossed to ensure that things roll smoothly, which at this point the consultation and management structure we have in place is really moving things forward.

Continuing forward we are looking at stock levels, camera equipment and planning around this to ensure that we have everything in place to a level that creative director JamesC (also senior artist and blogger for Lost Project) is happy with.

In addition to our film and TV goals, we have reopened dialogue with some of our fashion contacts including London and Delhi.