Meet Sarah Awa | publisher, editor, writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sarah Awa and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sarah, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
It began with my friend Deborah’s thought process, and she quickly “infected” my friend Jeannie and me with her idea and passion for it. The three of us had already become quite fed up with the publishing industry and its gatekeeping—how some really bad books have gotten published simply because of their author’s huge social media following; and so many excellent books have been rejected because they don’t fit the very narrow range of ideas that publishers are willing to take a chance on. The three of us (who all started out as professional editors, and writers) had reached the point where we knew we had to take action and do something to help ameliorate as much of the unfairness as we could. So we started Thinklings Books, which publishes fantasy and sci-fi novels based solely on the quality of the writing.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Any book that Thinklings publishes goes through rigorous edits and is guaranteed to meet our eight standards of quality, which we outline on our website. As I mentioned above, we don’t gatekeep ideas or judge based on the author’s popularity, which certainly sets us apart from the Big Five publishers.

It certainly hasn’t been an easy road, not having any celebrity authors or a million-dollar budget to promote ourselves. We rely largely on word-of-mouth and maintain as active of a presence on social media as we can. (I’m the one behind all those silly, punny tweets!)

Our biggest challenge came when the pandemic hit, only half a year after we got started. We only had a couple of books out at that point, and we lost money and personnel due to the complications that ensued. Actually, we almost shut down, but we rallied and found a way to keep going.

Thanks to that, I’ve learned some hard (but worth it!) lessons about perseverance. Nothing worth doing is ever easy, which I knew intellectually, but now I know through experience as well. What keeps me going is our authors, whom I think of almost as family. I get up every day thinking, “I can’t let them down,” and that spurs me to keep brainstorming and researching new ways to help these amazing writers and their excellent books!

Aside from a reputation for quality, I want us to be known for being scrappy underdogs who will never, ever give up the fight for fairness in publishing.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Well, if Deborah were visiting from Montana and let me plan everything with money as no object, I would first take her to some downtown Cleveland classics like the Rock ’n Roll Hall of Fame or the Great Lakes Science Center, and definitely the West Side Market and Chinatown (personal favorites). We could also shop and maybe catch a movie at Tower City. As for restaurants, I’d love to eat at Tomo Hibachi or The Harp. Then we would hit up some Metroparks, the zoo and Squire’s Castle in particular, and go for ice cream at Kirtland Creamery. We would, of course, have to visit Lake Erie, but maybe not a big, busy beach like Fairport or Mentor Headlands. I know of some smaller, more deserted ones that we could go to instead, and take my dog, and hers if she brought her. We might ride the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad and shop in the cute little stores in Peninsula. If it was hockey season, I’d love to go to a Monsters game too! We could also check out downtown Chagrin Falls and get ice cream at Jeni’s. Okay, this is probably more than a week’s worth of things to do! If we had time, I’d also love to drive down to Columbus and hang out in German Village, visit The Book Loft, and eat at the North Market.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Deborah Natelson is not only a great friend but also an excellent editor and the one who had the idea for Thinklings in the first place. She whipped my book, Hunter’s Moon, into publishable shape, and she’s one of the best writers I’ve read! I always look forward to proofreading anything she’s written, especially her exciting, suspenseful Kindle Vella story, The Midnight Files. Plus, she sends me cute pictures of her dog and cats!

Website: https://www.thinklingsbooks.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinklingsbooks/

Twitter: https://x.com/thinklingsbooks

Facebook: https://facebook.com/thinklingsbooks

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@thinklingsbooks

Other: @ThinklingsBooks on TikTok and Threads

Image Credits
Photos taken by Sarah and Oscar Awa.