Seven years ago, when Bob Gaines had finally been lucky enough to be signed by a literary agent, he told her about his novel, The Brave Historian. While she loved the concept, she only handled nonfiction.

“With fiction,” she said, “the big publishing houses don’t want to take a chance on unknowns. Of course, when somebody does manage to publish something different that finds success, all the other publishers then want to copy it.”

Literary agents and editors were becoming extremely frustrated that the fate of great literature was now being decided in corporate board rooms based on accounting projections. “They will print Lady Gaga’s autobiography,” she added, “but snub the next Ernest Hemingway.”

Based in a beautiful mountain town in Idaho, Hidden Shelf was founded in 2017 with the goal of providing wonderful and creative works to an audience of passionate readers. We have six more books scheduled for the next year and plan to double that by 2020.