UStory: LaunchCrate Publishing

A writer’s life is a marathon, rather than a race. It’s a commitment to a lifetime of finding and telling stories. After we’ve rendered the work for their day jobs, we must show up in our personal writing spaces to unfold the world we’ve created in a novel, to find the rhythm and write in our poems or uncover difficult truths about ourselves and society in an essay.

The writing (and constant editing) is only half the journey. Finding the right publisher or balancing the work required in self-publishing takes up a significant amount of time and emotional labor. Unfortunately, many writers find themselves earning very little when they publish with a third party. Cynthia Fails, owner and founder of LaunchCrate Publishing, reported the difficulty of her experience as a writer. She only received 14 cents for each copy from a $5 profit.

Publishing Made for Writers, By a Writer

Cynthia started LaunchCrate Publishing to “help flip the publishing industry on end, and was birthed to provide another option for authors looking to publish their work—one in which they are justly compensated for their time and talent.” The company’s services ensure that the writer keeps a portion of the profit that’s due to them.

Her business transitioned from a part-time gig, where she worked full-time at a University during the day and helped people get their work published at night. But the load became too heavy, so she took a leap of faith and began helping other authors with publishing their work full time:

Cementing a Person’s Legacy in a Story

LaunchCrate Publishing also provides writing services for those who want to cement their or another’s legacy. The Modern Memoir Service unfolds a person’s story based on journal entries and interviews. This service was born out of Cynthia’s love for telling stories, specifically the ones she heard from her grandfather as a child. She decided to establish his legacy for future generations in their family and came up with a narrative that she described as “one of a universal human experience.”

The Modern Memoir Service involves 10 steps, from expressing interest in the service to deliver the copies in print. After informing Cynthia of their interest in the service, a call will be set up for them to answer any outstanding questions customers may have.

Once the details are ironed out and the customer is ready to begin, LaunchCrate will send an agreement and survey to ask what they want to include in the starter pack. The starter pack includes a journal and an elegant pen to help articulate these memories. It also includes sticky notes to mark specific stories or questions they can answer at a later date. Scented candles are also included to help the client remember specific periods of time or locations.

The client will send back the completed journal for the team to review the entries and mark the stories to follow up interviews or for story sharing sessions. The team will trim down the audio from these sessions and identify the stories to be included in the final memoir. The narrowed down material will form the outline and initial manuscript that are edited before printing and reviewing one preview copy of the book.

The completed memoir is delivered in what Cynthia describes as “10 beautiful copies of the final Modern Memoir” to the customers.

Delivering the Value of a Journey in a Custom Mailer Box

LaunchCrate’s mailer box is designed with words from the LaunchCrate manifesto, which “stresses the importance of sharing your magical story with others, and creating a space for them to share theirs as well; both of which take place simultaneously through the course of the Modern Memoir Service,” according to Cynthia. She hopes that the mailer box communicates the value of the journey that customers are embarking on.

Out of all the companies that LaunchCrate considered to print the starter pack’s mailer box, UPrinting stood out for its high quality and consistency.

Cynthia was also pleasantly surprised by the accuracy and sharpness of the design. She praises the quality of the final mailer boxes, as they helped meet and exceed their expectations.

“The quality of the mailer box printed by UPrinting far surpassed the other test options, and we needed to change the final size of the box, the quality of our second box was just as good as that of the first,” she elaborates. The quality and consistency of the products gave Cynthia the confidence that the box they’d provide would be top-notch.

Several business owners also commented on the quality of their boxes and even inquired where Cynthia got them printed.

The box’s high quality helped LaunchCrate provide its customers “an upscale experience that aligned with the gravity of the Modern Memoir service,” Cynthia said.

Want to know more about LaunchCrate and its writing services? Check out their Modern Memoir Service page for more details. If you’re a writer looking to get your work published, they offer either a publishing consultant or publishing services you can read about here.

You can also visit LaunchCrate blog for regular updates and podcasts.