Antoinette Chanel is a author, publisher, and founder of Feathered Press Indie Publisher. She joins Cheddar News to discuss her writing and the inspiration behind creating her company. 

Between Bells

Author Antoinette Chanel Breaks Barriers in the Publishing Industry

Welcome back to Between Bells. One author wants Little Black Girls to know it's okay to be different. Antoinette Chanel is the author of a book for Black Girls and has taken her love for literature beyond writing by creating her own publishing company, feathered Press indie publisher. Now she's hoping to empower more authors and artists through her company no matter the barriers that they're faced with joining us now to discuss is Antoinette Chanel author, publisher and founder of feathered Press indie publisher. Welcome, thank you so much for joining us. A book for Black girls is such a beautiful reminder that being different is what makes people unique in their own right. What inspired you to create this incredible book for young black girls, Thank you so much for having me on today. I wrote a book for black girls kind of as a love note to the little black girl that I used to be. I thought about all of the messages that I needed to hear when I was young and I decided to put them into a book so that other little black girls could read that and reference those messages. Now you talk about talking to the little black girl inside yourself. I'm curious, I mean this really talks about celebrating your authentic self, How have you learned to embrace what makes you different and what advice would you have for other young ladies like yourself or like young ladies are of course younger than yourself but who want to be thinking positively towards the future. I have found that I felt the happiest life moved the most smoothly for me when I was gravitating towards the things that made me feel joy made me feel like I was using my talents made me feel good. And so really, I just want Black Girls everywhere to know that you have the freedom to flock towards whatever it is that you like, whether it's playing music or if you like to make art, if you like to do speech and debate, if you like to sing or rap or dance any of that stuff, if it's what you love, then go for it and don't worry so much about what other people have to say about it, it's about what you do. I think what's incredible is just the movement that you've made within this community, because you not only wrote your own book, but you create your own publishing company feathered press in the publisher. What inspired you to build that from the ground up. So, the experience of publishing a book for Black Girls was very eye opening. There are a lot of steps in publishing. And so I got that experience and I got used to it and I enjoyed it, I decided to do it again for a self help book titled, connecting the dots that was published in november of 2021. And after connecting the dots came out, I thought I've done this publishing thing twice. I have a really good friend who had her book finished a whole year before mine was and she was still waiting for publication at her publishing company um that she was working with. And so I figured well I know that I can move to publication much faster than that. Uh and I can also empower some people on the way and help them to avoid some of the scams that publishing unfortunately is riddled with. And so that's what led me to launch feathered press indie publisher. And black owned publishers and presses have long been a part of the american publishing industry, but it still isn't as diverse as of course we'd like to see at this point, what are some of the unique challenges that you think may really you really have that happening at this point? Thank you so much for that question. I honestly believe that the process of authoring and publishing books is often gate kept its gate kept partially because of academia because there are uh publishing requirements for people within academia and that usually goes along with a higher level of education, so an advanced degree and so a lot of people just think that, oh I can't write a book because I don't have a PhD or I don't have a special certification or I don't have, you know, insert whatever it is right here. And one thing that I'm really trying to show people through being a black publisher who owns a small business in publishing is to show people that there really aren't that many steps, there isn't that much distance between your concept and idea and putting that onto a bookshelf or onto an e reader. Um so teaching people about that process has been enlightening. Um but it's been interesting because I think that when the internet and digital technology, like when all of that rose, People just kind of assumed that books fell by the wayside, but no books are still, they form a almost $26 billion dollar industry. Um they are still very important, but I think that people just don't have the right perception about what books, how books are made and what books represent. And so being able to show people that know if you have expertise in your field, you can raise your industry profile through publishing a book, if you have a passion project, you can absolutely publish that and share it with the world on places like amazon and in retail locations, that's key and what advice would you have for some people who want to become a writer, but they just have no idea where to begin believe it or not becoming a writer really is as simple as sitting down with pen and paper or at the computer and putting words on the page, you don't have to be some Hemingway level author in order to be considered a writer or even someone who wants to attempt to write writing just like anything else, you get better at it with practice. So if it is something that you want to cultivate within yourself, I recommend taking up a regular writing practice, whether that's journaling, writing in a diary, writing letters to your friends or emails, but get into the habit of writing on a regular basis. And if you find that publication is something that you want reach out to someone who works in the industry who can give you a heads up as to what it is that you need to do um in order to do that, because publishing can be kind of challenging and complicated and there are lots of scams involved with it too. And Antony I have about 30 seconds left with you. But you recently spoke at the Juneteenth event about how important it is to you. What exactly does it mean to you, juneteenth is a representation of black people in the United States and our progress. Um it's also evidence of the progress of our nation to we still have work to do, but we've come a very long way and I'm just really excited to be out here contributing what I can to those efforts, especially on a day. As special as juneteenth. Excellent words there. Thank you Antoinette Chanel author, publisher and founder of feathered Press Indie publisher