Spotlight: Paul Kelly & St. Lynn’s Press

St. Lynn’s Press, founded in 2005 in Pittsburgh by longtime book publishing executive Paul Kelly, got its start publishing books on a wide range of topics, including body-mind-spirit, enlightened business and various “green” topics. Since then, St. Lynn’s has produced more than 70 titles, now specializing in books for the gift market that give fresh perspectives on organic gardening, sustainable living, “slow” and “local” lifestyles and self-reliance. St. Lynn’s chooses recycled papers, environmentally friendly inks and employ other technologies that support sustainability.

This year, St. Lynn’s has been awarded the Wilfred J. Jung Distinguished Service Medal by GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators. The medal is presented to a GWA member that promotes gardening across North America, helps to grow garden communications as a profession and supports the goals of the association and its members. It is one of the organization’s highest honors.

Paul and his St. Lynn’s Team will travel to Buffalo, NY in August to accept the honor.

 

You lived in California and worked in book publishing for 30 years before moving back to Pittsburgh to start St. Lynn’s Press. Tell us about your publishing career.

I lived in Northern California for 20 years and SoCal for four years. I started The Kelly Company, an advertising and PR firm in 1981. Our prime focus was to schedule book PR for leading NY publishers and authors. We specialized in landing both print and electronic (radio and TV) interviews in eight west coast cities… from Seattle to San Diego and everything in between. In 1989 I became the Sales and Marketing Director for DAWN Publications, an independent house that focused on children’s books with nature themes. And in 1993 I was named the Marketing Director for Crystal Clarity Publishers, a small press that published books on body, mind and spirit.

In 1995 I accepted a senior publicist post with HarperCollins in San Francisco. I was soon promoted to manage the marketing department and worked with authors like Billy Graham, Johnny Cash, Dan Marino, Boyz2Men, Robert Schuler, Arnold Palmer, and Charles Schulz.

Even though I was gone from Pittsburgh for a total of 30 years, it was still home. I moved back in 2002 when my mother took ill and subsequently passed away. I’ve been here ever since. I started St. Lynn’s shortly after returning to Pittsburgh.

Why did you choose to focus on garden and eco-green titles?

I planted my first garden in 1974 in the hills of West Virginia and have continued to do so ever since. We published Grow Organic with local authors, Doug Oster and Jessica Walliser in 2007, who will also be honored by GWA this year. It was a good and steady seller for us, which led us to broaden our interest in publishing gardening books. In 2010 we opted to primarily publish only books on gardening and other eco-green topics.

Do you see writing communities and organizations (like GWA) as an important tool for connecting with writers and other creatives?

Joining the Garden Writer’s Association (GWA) was an important step in our growth as a book publisher. In a way, we are partners with the association by publishing many of its authors while at the same time landing many reviews of our books from other members in the group.

What other types of books do you publish? Have you worked with Pittsburgh authors?

We’ve published 15 books by Pittsburgh area authors. In 2012, we published EAT YOUR ROSES: …Pansies, Lavender and 49 Other Delicious Edible Gardens with garden expert Denise Schreiber. Last year, we published Salt Rising Bread: Recipes and Heartfelt Stories of a Nearly Lost Appalachian Tradition with Jenny Bardwell and Susan Ray Brown, from Mount Morris, PA. We also offer a custom publishing program that allows us to publish books outside of our main niche of gardening.

Publishing offers a varied day-to-day job working with many different types of creative people. It’s a field were one must have strong writing skills along with a penchant for seeing marketing, promotion and sales possibilities for many different types of genres.

As a small publisher, we accept both agented and non-agented book proposals.

As someone with a long career in publishing, what does the future of publishing look like to you?

Even though the average consumer has so many different choices today as to how they use their time, books — in many different formats — are still strong sellers. As a result, the future of publishing looks bright and will continue to be strong in physical books, digital books and audio books as long as writers and publishers carve out their niche and stick with it.

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