New Street Fiction Publishing Firm to Release Novel

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This from The Journal Times dot com by Michael Burke:

A company that edits urban street fiction for publication has also moved into publishing the genre itself.

In October 2008 Niccole Simmons, 34, of Racine, and her nephew, Bryant Jones, 33, of Waukegan, Ill., cofounded 21st Street Urban Editing.

"Bryant had written a book and was looking for an editor," Simmons said about the company's start. But he was having a hard time finding an editor who wouldn't clean up his intentional slang and misspellings.

Simmons, who started in human services, said urban street fiction is written the way the urban culture talks; it includes forms of words not considered acceptable in traditional fiction. For example, its readers like to see "ain't" left alone.

"It's like hip-hop," Simmons said. "It's like the difference between hip-hop and R and B (rhythm and blues)."

The 21st Street mission statement is: "To provide the same quality editing service to urban and hip hop literature authors as the traditional editing services, at an affordable price."

Recently, Simmons and Jones added a third equal partner, Tiona Dawkins, 32, of Newark, N.J., to become 21st Street Urban Editing and Publishing.

Last week, Dawkins was on the verge of seeing her own novel, "The Unusual Suspects," released by Cartel Publications. She met Simmons and Jones because 21st Street was editing her manuscript.

The firm's intended clients are urban authors who, so far, have been self-published and sell their books at barber shops, beauty parlors, swap meets and so on.

So far the company has Jones, Dawkins and three other authors on board, Simmons said.
The first novel for 21st Street will be Jones' titled, "21st Street; Straight Outta Zompton" (slang for Zion, Ill.). It will be released as a trilogy of novellas, the first one scheduled for a June 1 release.

The book will be available at the 21st Street website, Amazon.com and through small distributors, Simmons said. The latter means that people could go to a bookstore and order it, but would not find it on the shelves.

After publishing 10 books, she said, 21st Street Editing & Publishing would be able to use some of the major distributors and have books placed in bookstores such as Barnes & Noble.

For more information, visit: http://21streeturbanediting.com or e-mail: niccole@21streeturbanediting.com