Category Archives: News

Thinking Ink Press Awarded a Fiscal Sponsorship

We’re excited to announce that we recently signed an agreement for a fiscal sponsorship with the nonprofit organization Independent Arts & Media (IAM)!

This arrangement makes us eligible for grants, lets us receive tax-deductible donations through IAM’s nonprofit structure, and gives us access to new tools, mentorship, and networking opportunities. 

Our partnership with IAM will help us fulfill our purpose of publishing inclusive books. We’re still Thinking Ink Press and we’re not becoming a nonprofit.

Until this opportunity came up we didn’t even know what fiscal sponsorship was. Wikipedia has a longer explanation if you’re curious to know more.

We’d like to extend special thanks to our publishing mentor Johanna Vondeling, who recommended that we apply for a fiscal sponsorship and then helped us during the application process. Johanna became our mentor through the Innovative Voices Program at the Independent Book Publishing Association (IBPA). We learned so much from her! We also appreciate the support from Lisa Burger, the Executive Director at IAM, who answered our many questions and explained all the things that IAM offers.

Check out this cool new widget.

You can also see it in the sidebar on the right.

Clicking the widget takes you to our new Flipcause donation page, which accepts contributions to Thinking Ink Press using IAM’s 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. IAM will accept, process, and acknowledge contributions to support Thinking Ink Press made via this page. This includes issuing receipts for tax deduction purposes.

Buying Thinking Ink Press books and products—whether through our website, in person, or at bookstores—is still a great way to support our press and our authors directly. Thanks for buying our books! If you feel moved to support our purpose even more, now you can make a tax-deductible donation, thanks to IAM. Only donations through our fiscal sponsor are tax-deductible. 

Kickstarter funded!

The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters.
Coming soon!
Image shows the book on a background that matches the book cover.

The book cover shows a figure of an alien and a figure of a human in a space suit, facing each other, on a background of a dark and colorful nebula in space.

Available to order now. Release date: August 6.

Thanks to all of our backers who helped us raise over $8,000! Now we can pay our authors and artists more.

If you missed the campaign, you can still get the book. Preorder now and it will ship by August 6.

The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters

From: $9.99

 A diverse, hopeful book of neurodiversity-themed science fiction short stories, poetry, and art for anyone who loves science fiction, who cares about neurodiversity, or who wants to see optimistic visions of the future.

Read more

Sneak peek at inspiring quote tote bags and stickers

We will be developing three more original postcard designs for our Inspiring Quote Kickstarter campaign rewards. In the meantime, the sample tote bag and sticker arrived. Here’s a picture of them with a copy of Keiko’s book Your Writing Matters so you can get a sense of scale.  

To read the full update, visit the Kickstarter campaign.

Our Inspiring Postcards for Writers Kickstarter succeeded!

Three-quarter view of a white card propped on a little easel. The card has quilling of flowers and curls in a rainbow of colors around the outside, and in hand-written calligraphy the text "You deserve to create what's in you to create", with the attribution "Keiko O'Leary". In the lower left corner are the artist's initials "JM". This is the image on the first of the four postcards.
The original quilling & calligraphy art for the first quote postcard, by Julia Macek. Isn’t it beautiful?

Thanks to everyone who backed our campaign and helped us reach our funding goal and even a stretch goal!

Because the Kickstarter campaign succeeded, we are developing a set of four postcards with inspiring quotes for writers from the book Your Writing Matters by Keiko O’Leary. The postcards feature new original quilled art and calligraphy by award-winning artist Julia Macek, with art photography by visual designer Caroline Sanney. The campaign unlocked a stretch goal, to create bonus 3 x 4 inch vinyl stickers.

Once the campaign rewards are finished and sent out, we’ll announce when the postcards and stickers are available for everyone to buy.

The four quotes are:

  • You deserve to create what’s in you to create
  • Your writing matters. Your life matters. Your stories matter.
  • What you create could change someone’s life
  • Have faith that what you create could touch someone

We love sending postcards in the mail, and we’re so excited that these beautiful images are going to be available to inspire writers and creatives alike!

Be the first to hear when the postcards are available for everyone to purchase

If you’re not already on our mailing list, sign up so we can let you know when they’re available for everyone to purchase! You’ll be subscribed to our general mailing list, which includes news about other books we publish.



Our Kickstarter is now live for beautiful inspiring postcards

We want to create a set of beautiful postcards with inspiring quotes from the book Your Writing Matters by Keiko O’Leary. 

Each postcard will feature a quote in calligraphy combined with custom quilling artwork created by award-winning artist Julia Macek. The set of postcards will include two copies each of four postcards, with the possibility of unlocking more rewards. 

If our campaign doesn’t fund, these postcards will never exist. Help us create them by backing at the level that works for you! 😃

Go to the Postcard Kickstarter.

Kickstarter campaigns are all or nothing, so backers won’t get charged anything unless we reach our funding goal to cover the costs of creating new original art and producing the postcards. 

We were selected for the Innovative Voices program

We are honored to be chosen for the first year of the IBPA Innovative Voices program.

Along with four other publishers, we will receive year-long mentoring and a host of other benefits sponsored by the Independent Book Publishers Association and IngramSpark.

From IBPA’s announcement

“These publishers are giving voices to writers who otherwise may not be heard, and readers the opportunity to see themselves in the pages of their books,” said IBPA CEO Andrea Fleck-Nisbet. “IBPA’s board-approved DEI commitment aims to mitigate the legacy of bias in the publishing industry, and we hope that the Innovative Voices program will help to reshape our industry for the future.”


We’re excited to be part of this program, and we can’t wait to get to know the other publishers in our cohort!

We Are a Finalist for Innovative Voices

 

Wow! We are one of the twenty finalists who have been shortlisted for the IBPA Innovative Voices program, sponsored by IngramSpark.

We are honored to be among this group of independent publishers who are doing such amazing work. 

If selected, we would receive funding, mentoring, and networking opportunities to help us become a better publisher.

See details and learn about the other finalists.

Yay! Instant Books!

Love fun paper objects?

What about flash fiction?

Mini books?

Our Instant Books are small books folded from a single sheet of paper.

Our current selection offers short stories (some very short), paired with color artwork.

Here’s a video of Keiko O’Leary folding Bees by Betsy Miller.

Get your own copy of Bees or another of our Instant Books.