April S. Fields

April S. Fields has been involved, one way or another, in publishing for more than thirty years. Starting as Creative Director in the early eighties for The Family Workshop, a Craft Book producer, she moved into book project photography which lead to a position as a product photo stylist for a catalog advertising agency in Atlanta. Over the years her interest and involvement in book publishing, design and photography gave her just enough odd and assorted skills she needed to help launch Faithful Publishing in 2005.

When it seemed clear that she would never fit into any mainstream category for any traditional publishing house she chose to do what she has always done-she did it herself. Her original goal was to help get books that would otherwise never be published into print. Two of Donna Campbell Smith's YA historical fiction books, An Independent Spirit and Pale As the Moon and Christy Bennett's Our Girl were three of her first published titles.

When she began her publishing journey, POD (Print On Demand or digital printing) was still a dirty word in the industry but as has always been her ability, she could see, even in 2001 that it would be the next revolution of publishing. It wasn't going away, as so many naysayers predicted, and that she knew for sure. She dived in believing that the technology of digital printing would only improve, just as digital photography has now finally replaced silver film. It was not difficult to envision that the old school business of publishing was going to have to change or fall behind.

Nearly ten years in, April and her original vision for Faithful Publishing has changed as well. She is more likely to mentor new authors to self publish, in editing and formatting than she is to publish under FP ISBNs but her determination to encourage and give a hand up to aspiring writers is as strong as the day she launched Faithful Publishing.

One small pet project she loves, she calls Lil' Digital Books, helps to promote reading, writing and publishing for children. She does presentations in grade school classrooms and guides the class to the completion of a collaboration book. The first thing she tells the class is that not all readers become writers but, without exception, all writers are avid readers.

"When I was four years old I would stare at the pages of a book willing the words to speak to me. I don't recall the first time I began to read, I only know I have never gotten over it."