My own book, Introspection: A Poetry Series in Heptastichs, taught me most of what I know about how much care a manuscript actually needs before it is ready for someone else to read.
Wholesomepen started because I kept meeting two kinds of people. Writers with a real book in them, who had no clear, trustworthy way to get it made properly — not overcharged, not upsold, not rushed. And students who deserved better English teaching than a crowded classroom could realistically give every one of them, individually.
Those turned out to be the same problem, wearing two different faces: good language work is slow, personal, and easy to shortcut if nobody is holding the line on quality.
Wholesomepen is that line — on the publishing side for the writers we work with, and on the learning side through Lightbulb English, for the students building the vocabulary they will write with one day.
Stephen WholesomeFounder, Wholesomepen Publishers