Publishers throughout history have carried the heavy responsibility of recording past and present events for posterity. (This often includes fiction because fiction mirrors reality.) We at Pen and Sword Publishers Ltd. believe great stories are keepers to be enjoyed often as well as shared with others. Gripping tales pull us into the lives of their characters, invite us on their journeys, and keep us turning pages, cheering them on as they struggle to overcome the same challenges many of us face in our own lives. While we at Pen & Sword do not publish books that include explicit sex or the expletives prevalent in many of today’s publications—and we minimize graphic violence—we firmly believe you will not miss those elements in our true-to-life, heartwarming stories.
We do not publish religious or political stories; nor do we accept manuscripts that contain references to the occult or that have demonic or supernatural themes. Our books are typically family friendly, even though they are very realistic and often address topics such as devastating loss, domestic violence, family issues, death of loved ones, choices and consequences, and others common to the human race.
Books are a treasure, one that too frequently goes underappreciated in our modern world, yet they are the medium through which history has been recorded. Early publishers began with drawings on cave walls that contained the stories of our ancestors, records of their daily lives, and perhaps even their hopes for the future. While stories were often passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, writers also chiseled their words on stone tablets and later penned them on bulky scrolls. Thus, our early history found its safe place in those precursors of the bound volumes that came off a press much later.
Our authors are few, primarily L.S. Lane and some others, and we carefully review each manuscript for quality writing, originality, and adherence to our editorial requirements as noted above. Also, we require books we publish to be professionally edited. Linda Lane (L.S. Lane), our chief editor, is available to address your editing needs, but feel free to employ any competent editor that uses The Chicago Manual of Style or a similar grammar reference as a guide. If you wish to discuss your book’s content with us, please send an e-mail to LSLane@LSLaneBooks. com. One of our staff will respond to your questions and/or concerns as quickly as possible.
Mission: Our goal is to offer well-written, compelling stories in a variety of genres that are suitable for readers from young adults to seasoned (senior) citizens. While some people have the ability to travel domestically, visit foreign lands, take cruises, many others cannot. No one can time travel, neither to the past nor the future. Yet much of the world’s literate population has access to books, which can take the reader on a journey to days gone by, to futuristic planets, to grand mansions, humble cottages, portable wigwams, to places one can only imagine seeing. Books inspire dreams and soothe broken hearts. They grant clarity to seekers and solace to mourners. Stories about issues that face so many of us can shed light on—perhaps even provide answers to—problems we face daily. They instruct, inform, and entertain. Below is a whimsical poem I wrote to celebrate the opening of an independent book store in Grand Junction, Colorado, in the early 1990s. The owner had it blown up to about 5 feet tall and hung it from the store’s high ceiling.
BOOKS
Where can you find the very best zoo?
Where can you learn exactly how to?
Where can you plan a flight to the moon?
Where can you seek the ways of the loon?
Where can you take a trip to the past?
Where can you join a big Broadway cast?
Where can you ride in a Wild West show?
Where can you go where no one did go?
Where can you find unbeatable strength?
Where can you travel both breadth and length?
Where can you meet the great and the small?
Where can you grow to be ten feet tall?
Where can you learn how to get wealthy?
Where can you find how to be healthy?
How can you walk where ancestors trod,
Or sail with Wynken, Blynken, and Nod?
You might be very surprised to know
That no matter where you want to go,
You have only to open a book—
Just sit down now and take a quick look.
You can be mighty, you can be meek,
You can be plain, or you can be chic;
No matter which way that you choose,
You decide whether you win or lose.
When you read a book, you grow inside,
Expand horizons, relish the ride,
Hitch your wagon to a rising star—
Who you want to be is who you are.
Read to your parents, read to your child,
Read to yourself, by books be beguiled;
Travel the world, the universe grand—
Your passport is the book in your hand.
Linda Lane