Close-up macro shot of a beautifully bound hardcover book with textured cream paper pages, warm natural window light, soft afternoon shadows, shallow depth of field, 35mm
Close-up macro shot of a beautifully bound hardcover book with textured cream paper pages, warm natural window light, soft afternoon shadows, shallow depth of field, 35mm
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Books with Soul®

Why Books with Soul®

A small press for stories worth dog-earing, and journals worth filling. I didn't set out to start a press. OUR STORY

Books with Soul ™ was inspired from a lover of music and life, who believed in the soul. He had a collection of wonderful things. Physical memories you could read, touch, and listen to- including thousands of vinyl albums. Old school music, that lasts forever. In 2018, he passed away from brain cancer, but his memory lives on as others go old school. Collect pieces of your history, put pencil to paper, and record written memories. A physical book will not be lost in the cloud, and will last longer than a lifetime.

Since 2018

A life stitched together, one book at a time

Years ago I walked out of a corporate job with no plan beyond "somewhere I can breathe." That somewhere turned out to be Mexico — a sailboat, the Sea of Cortez, a life stitched together from freelance travel writing (500+ published articles and counting), 15 years as a columnist for a small local paper, and eventually, my first novel.

A Deep Thing won a Readers' Favorite Gold Medal — it was originally published by another small press, and I've since brought it home under our own imprint. My suspense novel Her Perfect Disappearance followed, and my nonfiction book It's Going to Be a Great Day shares true stories of inspiration and grace. Then a shy, glowing fish started swimming through the same waters I did, and children's books happened too — first mine, and now other authors' as well.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I noticed the thread connecting everything I loved to write and read: books that ask to be held, marked up, dog-eared, and kept — not scrolled past and forgotten.

Meet the Founder

Anita Kaltenbaugh (A.K. Smith)

That's the idea behind Books with Soul®. We're a small press and a curated shelf, both at once. Under our own imprint, we publish fiction, nonfiction, and children's books — mine, and a growing list from authors I believe in — plus something we care about just as much: journals. Because some of the best stories in a family were never written by a novelist. They're the ones written by hand, in the margins of a travel log, at a kitchen table, at 50, at 60, at "the adventures of us." We make room for those too.

Every title here — ours or one we've simply fallen in love with — is chosen the same way: read, felt, and only then recommended. No algorithm, no bulk lists. Just books, and the people who love them.

I'm Anita Kaltenbaugh. I write nonfiction and journals under my own name, and children's books and suspense novels as A.K. Smith — you'll see both names around this site, and that's on purpose; they're both me. Home is a moving target between Arizona and Puerto Peñasco on Mexico's Sea of Cortez, shared with my husband and our dog, Levi — with occasional detours like a cave in Turkey. My mission, if I have one, is spreading a little kindness while I chase down every continent on the map. Two new travel books are already in the works from that habit.

If you're here, I'm guessing you feel the same pull I do — toward pages that last longer than a scroll.

Welcome to the shelf.

— Anita Kaltenbaugh (A.K. Smith), Founder, Books with Soul Press® · Est. 2018

View Curated Shelves

Timeless pieces, gifted with soul

Our shelves await your curiosity, offering handpicked titles across fiction, nonfiction, journals, and children's stories. Let us help you find a book to keep you company tonight or to help someone collect their memories.