Home | 1994-2020 | Design Services | Trade Backlist | Contact



TATTERSALL PUBLISHING: 1994-2020

2020 UPDATE: The headline above kinda looks like an epitaph, but it's not. Tattersall Publishing is still here because Tattersall Publishing is me...and *I'M* still here! But, as we know, all things evolve, and now Tattersall has evolved into Mil Gatos Creative, which is what I hope to do for the rest of my life (or until it's not fun anymore, whichever comes first). I'm still going to provide graphics support to my established clients for the foreseeable future, but I'm not taking on any new ones.

My eyesight is not getting any better and there are a lot of things I want to see and do before I can't. There are a couple of books I'd still like to write and a lot of art I still want to make. So join me on Facebook at my personal page @Crystal.C.Wood or @casamilgatos. I hope to migrate some of the Mil Gatos portfolio to Instagram soon.

Love, Crystal ~ January 2020
- - - - - - -

I started Tattersall Publishing in August 1994 as a self- publishing venture. After having received much positive feedback from but little success with major publishers with my first novel, Cut Him Out in Little Stars,* I decided that the only way to get this novel published was to do it myself. At the time, my husband, George, and I owned a small quick printing company in Denton, Texas. It was all old-school ink slapped on paper with a printing press. I actually ran the press on the first 500 sets of the book's pages, and we collated them, chapter by chapter, on the dining room table at home. The full-color cover was printed at a large commercial printing company in Gainesville, and the books were bound in Dallas.

My plan was to take the book directly into the science fiction market by way of science fiction conventions. I would have been happy to sell a hundred copies. But some very favorable reviews in respected trade and genre publications such as Publishers Weekly and Starlog launched the humorous SF novel into the national market. In 1998, at the beginning of the digital printing revolution, Cut Him Out in Little Stars went into a second printing.

Following the success of Cut Him Out in Little Stars, I decided to expand the scope of Tattersall Publishing as a trade publisher, and released the first novel by my friend Gerald Eugene Nathan Stone, God's Front Porch, which was a hit in the inspirational market. I then published Fool's Joust, the sequel to Cut Him Out in Little Stars, to favorable reviews from many notable sources. Then followed several other books from a number of other authors, and Tattersall Publishing was officially a small press.

I'm very pleased that Tattersall Publishing's trade books have received favorable notices in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, The Midwest Book Review, and other publications specific to the books' genres. At least one of the Tattersall titles has had serious consideration for motion picture production, and one was even adapted as a screenplay. We made some good memories in these 20 years!

But, as with all business ventures, there are ups and downs, and over time, a business that wants to stay in business will evolve. In 2003, I decided that the financial risks of trade publishing and the demands on my time and skills were becoming too great. I discontinued that service and began to play to my strength: publication design and production. I had worked as a professional graphics artist since high school, and, with the digital print-on-demand revolution taking off,Tattersall evolved into a book design outsource for self-publishing authors and a general graphic arts service. In addition to books, I design and contract for production for everything from business cards to newsletters, annual reports, catalogs, brochures, newsletters, and even T-shirts and other advertising specialties. Take a look at the portfolio if you have a few minutes...I think I do pretty good work for someone with no formal graphic arts training. ;)

I'll never forget the thrill of opening that first carton of my books when they arrived from the bindery. I get to experience that same excitement again every time an author whose book I have helped to realize does the same. Thank you to all who have been with me on the journey so far. We still have a lot of good books to write, read, and publish, so let's all get busy!



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Website and Content Copyright 1994-2019 by Tattersall Publishing.