<No.6>

I first heard about Lost the Plot Creative at a panel on small presses at the London Book Fair when a familiar voice in the audience asked a question to the panel. I ran into Sam Dolan later that same day, recognising her from my time at Lancaster University whilst completing my BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. It was a pleasure to hear all about her work since finishing her PhD.

Emily: How did you start Lost the Plot Creative?

Image of the Lost the Plot Creative Logo

Sam: I started a small press after going to a Publishing Scotland event last year and saw a lot of other independent presses and the kind of things that they were putting out. Even though they were smaller and a lot more accessible at that point, it still felt like it was going to be so hard to get anything in front of them.

But I dismissed it initially because I thought you had to do a master’s or the continuing professional practice degree to be a publisher. I learned that day that you don’t, you just need the desire to do it, and then some kind of funding. I did put myself through a diploma in proofreading and copyediting just to make sure I could do it. You shouldn’t take for granted that everybody knows how an M dash works, especially when an M dash now looks like AI.

I realised that whilst I’ve been in education for so long, I’ve edited people’s words, but it’s a different animal when they’re expecting it to be of the quality that will get you published. I found a premises, which is where I am sitting now and I joined as many creative writing groups as possible on Facebook and Instagram to put myself out there.

Emily: What led to the name Lost the Plot Creative?

Sam: That was my husband which is so annoying because I love it. I love developmental editing, helping people improve their craft. I am a tutor with the adult education programme in Edinburgh, and I was just talking with my husband about how it’s so important to help people figure out their plots and make sure that the beats make sense. And so he went into ChatGPT, put that in and it came up with our logo. And I love it, it encapsulates everything that I want to do with Lost the plot Creative.

Emily: What is the dream for your press?

Sam: The vision for my press is to get as many unknown authors out the door as possible, giving people a real path to being published. I want them to feel like a small press, not second best, it’s just smaller. That’s partly why I’m not a vanity press because I will not publish everything and anything.

Financially, the risk in publishing is entirely mine so it’s not in my best interest to blow smoke up your ass and tell you you’re a writer when you’re not. The book needs to be able to make the money back. It would be great to have a cabal of really successful authors going out there and selling their film rights and stuff, but on the whole, I don’t even expect authors to stay with me their whole careers. I would be so happy to be a developmental launchpad for people where they publish maybe their first three or four books with me and then the bigger people see their potential and skyrocket them in a way that not just I can’t but never want to. 

My dream is to incubate and get people out there. And for some people, that will be one book and then be proud of themselves and for other people, it will be, can you help me find an agent? Can we try and get this sold? Can we try and look in other geographies? And I’m happy to do all of that.

Sam is open to hearing from writers. You can find her on:

Instagram: @lost.theplotcreative

Facebook: @Lost the Plot Creative

Website: https://www.losttheplotcreative.co.uk