What is Third Estate Books?

Here is a little about what I stand for, who I am, what Third Estate Books is all about, and how Third Estate hopes to accomplish the aforementioned goals.

About Aquino Loayza (EIC):

I grew up poor, but what exactly did that look like? My mother had me at sixteen, and my father was a gangster. I shouldn’t be here. I was marked for the prison industrial complex before they could cut my umbilical cord. I will spare you the details of my troubled upbringing in Boston and Lynn, Massachusetts, but I promise you I know how it feels to be hungry. I know how it feels to not know if you’ll have a roof over your head. I know how it feels to come from a family of drug abuse and cyclical poverty. Lastly, I know how it is to feel like an imposter in the face of petit bourgeois institutionalist gatekeeping. I was made to be on the outside looking in. My first and foremost goal is to find other voices from these backgrounds that have been disregarded in Art for too long. Art is not a hobby; it is a story, and not all people can afford to tell theirs, but as a society, we can’t afford to not hear them.

What kind of stories does Third Estate seek to Publish?

We seek to publish Radical, Degenerate, Queer, Weirdo Horror that not only pushes the boundaries of terror but makes us question deeper societal issues. Paulo Reglus Neves Freire once said, “When education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor.” That is our mission statement. Whenever someone reads a Third Estate book, we want to evoke dialogue. We want to liberate people through fun, inventive, introspective literature that speaks to the humanity inherent in our collectivized experience of existence.

How does Third Estate hope to accomplish this?

Third Estate envisions being something akin to a co-operative for publishing, where if we are unable to fund or select your book and do the justice it deserves, you WILL have access to resources to connect with someone you can work with together on your project, whether it be co-editing with another creative or a professional in the space that understands the foundational tenants of community building.

To be candid, and I WILL always be transparent, try to break the walls between the creative and publishing processes. This will be a huge focus of our actions until we gain a bigger footing.

I am self-funding this, which means two things: 1) I am beholden to no Gatekeepers. I don’t owe stockholders or investors any means to carry a profit. I am afforded the luxury to choose stories I find meaningful and voices that need to be heard, as opposed to envisioning profitability as the crux of my decisions. We all know Goosebumps sells, but we all know the story that touched our souls the most and dared to take risks.

2) This also means we don’t have the money or the running of a massive corporate entity. We will only take on a few stories a year at first as we start to set the backbones of something sustainable, ethical, and reputable in an industry with dozens and dozens of predatory publishing houses.

How does Third Estate decide if a story is accepted?

I, Aquino Loayza, will always personally vet every story. From a limited sample you send, I will respond within 90 days if we want a full manuscript from you. From there, if I think it speaks to our mission statement AND I believe we have a team that can do justice to the Novel, I will pass it to my Editors. I intend to have a team of three Editors who will be given a chance to look at the work, and if one of the Editors and I agree we can work on it, then we will notify you of acceptance.

We intend to have preferred vendors for Cover Artists and Voice Over Artists in line with our Co-op vision, with creatives I trust and know will do their best and have showcased deep ethics in community-building exercises.

What if Third Estate declines my manuscript?

This is where our marketplace of available editors, co-edit buddies, artists, and others make self publishing or further polishing for other sub-calls or Agent queries more viable. I can’t promise you anything for Free, but I promise you I will personally vet every Editor we intend to allow into this repository with references, likewise to artists. We will do our best to nurture a community of mutually beneficial partnerships.

Publishing has been gatekeeped for too long, and I intend to make self publishing far more accessible to the masses through Third Estate’s coalition building.