This comes from our newsletter series, From the Editor’s Desk, where Catalyst founder/publisher, Jessica, gives you a peek behind the Catalyst curtain. Subscribe to our newsletter to get more looks inside Catalyst HQ, author Q&As, giveaways, and more!
I have to tell you the truth, I’m feeling kind of tired. But it’s a good tired! 2018 was a whirlwind year (following 2017, its own kind of whirlwind) and included many firsts. For this Editor‘s Desk column, I thought I’d tell you what some of those firsts were–all of them worthy of celebration. And hopefully I’ll find some time to do just that this month–celebrate all the firsts of 2018.
In May 2018, we established a distribution agreement in southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana) with LAPA UITGEWERS. LAPA is a renowned publisher in South Africa, and in fact are the publishers of both Martin Steyn and Chanette Paul, whose crime novels were the first books we published at Catalyst in October 2017. They have just started down the road of distribution and Catalyst Press/Story Press Africa became their first client. We are super excited by this partnership and super excited that now we have the ability, means, and infrastructure to get our authors and illustrators into southern African bookstores and publicized to southern African media outlets.
In June 2018, we rolled out an online bookstore on our website to sell our books directly to readers.
August 2018. We were awarded our first translation grant from the Goethe Institute for The Wall by Max Annas. Rachel Hildebrandt is the translator and she’s done an amazing job.
September 2018. We launched our first books into southern Africa—The Lion’s Binding Oath and Other Stories by Ahmed Ismail Yusuf 
and Shaka Rising: A Legend of the Warrior Prince by Luke M. Molver. Both books had previously launched in North America. In the future, we will have a more seamless launch of books publishing in both places at around the same time. We also attended our first ComicCon Africa via our Story Press Africa team in South Africa. It was held in Johannesburg and we let the world know about our great historical graphic novel series and the first book in the series.
October 2018. We attended our first Frankfurt Book Fair. I met a lot of fantastic publishers, saw lots of great books, was able to meet German author Max Annas (in addition to The Wall, we’re also publishing his novel, The Farm in 2020).
November 2018. We signed our first audio book rights to Brilliance. Both The Wall and Crackerjack by Peter Church will become audio books in 2019! 
December 2018. This maybe isn’t the first #ReadingAfrica week but it’s the second and it’s the first one where many people completely unassociated with us jumped into the fray and helped us to celebrate all the great books by African writers and about Africa across four social media platforms–Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Thanks for making 2018 such a great year. I’ve probably forgotten some firsts. But that’s OK. When I remember them, I’ll be sure to celebrate them too. Thanks for being a part of Catalyst Press. We’re grateful for you!
