On the Idea of Being My Own Publisher
In 1983, I became the features editor of my college newspaper, and shortly thereafter learned phototypesetting, a skill that would fund my last three years of college. This will become relevant in a bit.
In 1995, my husband started a small business to electronically file medical claims with insurance companies. Setting it up, filing the taxes, and eventually going through bankruptcy taught me how to run a business (we only ever had one client, and he had a heart attack several weeks before Blue Cross/Blue Shield came out with their own DIY software, but I digress).
In 1996, I became a technical writer after teaching myself HTML from a “for the Compleat Idiot” book (My Eureka moment: “It’s just typesetting codes!” Told you it would become relevant).
Off and on between 1997 and 2006 (and every few months in my current job) I worked in corporate marketing, branding, new product introduction, that sort of thing.
In short, it appears my background has given me a semi-unique skill set that will allow me to easily become my own publisher. Thus, I am filing an Assumed Business Name (Idaho’s version of a DBA — we can never do anything normally) with the Secretary of State’s office next month…Wylde Hare Press will be born.
Why? Carina Press just rejected the best thing I have ever written, “The Nobinata Gambit.” I submitted the second manuscript to them reluctantly; Carina is an imprint of Harlequin, which is a corporate master of ensuring rights are never returned to writers. I reasoned that I might as well have the entire diaspora series with them, in spite of poor sales for the first title.
The sales of the first book in the series, to put it politely, stank on ice, in spite of the book finalling in the EPIC awards. Furthermore, the sales price was cut to $2.99, which means that I received about 60 cents for each sale at Amazon, Nook and Kobo.
By way of comparison, my Samhain Publishing title earns $1.65 per sale at third party retailers, and sells more copies per month (as in 6 copies vs 4) in spite of being three years older. So much for the mighty Harlequin marketing machine, LOL. They work great for some people — I have several friends who published well with the company — just not for me.
I will not start on my editor (who was essentially the reason I sat on the manuscript for nine months after completing it). Lovely woman, but we had different visions for the story in “The Valmont Contingency.” Since I’ve been an editor probably longer than she’s been alive — I first held the job title at the tender age of fourteen — I think mine was better. She would probably disagree.
During the 3.5 months I was waiting for Carina to decide, I developed an idea for a lead-in novella to the diaspora series that will make Carina’s “ownership” of the first full-length book irrelevant; I can have my “permafree” (that’s a technical term) novella, the first book at $2.99, and then…whatever I want, since I’m the owner of my new publisher.
The DBA name is one my husband, Spooky Man, has been throwing around for years in other contexts. And since I like rabbits and the whole idea of doing my own publishing really is kind of a wild hair, well, there you go. Synchronicity happens.
Spooky Man would dearly love its corporate symbol to be a white rabbit silhouette on a background of a starry sky (a wild hare where the sun doesn’t shine–he is a diabolical punster), but I would prefer to keep it mostly tasteful. Mostly.
I’m starting with a novella that I wrote in 2011, which is going to be the start of a series of six interlocking stories that will divide nicely into two novel-length anthologies. The first one is titled “Open Mike at Club Bebop” which is a jazz club in Luna City, on Earth’s moon. I haven’t figured out yet if this world is a precursor to the Human Diaspora universe or the Dozen Worlds universe, but it’s set during the era of our first settlements off of our homeworld.
With a bit of luck and quite a bit of elbow grease, “The Nobinata Gambit” will be ready and published by the end of September.
The follow-on to “Blade’s Edge,” which is tentatively titled “Becoming Unique,” (it’s how Talyn learns to use her powers for good rather than eeeevvviiilllll) is on track to publish about six months after, in March of 2015, and the two friends of Bebop should be finished in time to fill in the months between.
And so it goes, on to a brave new world in this case. Wish me luck.
I’m really excited to that you’re continuing to write. I’ve loved Blade’s Edge ever since i read got it from sahmain publishing (lol). Just got finished with the Valmont Contingency, which I had been leery of since it seemed to be such on such a different track record than your first. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. Loved it, and I can’t wait to read your next book. Since you’re starting your own publishing company, will you be accepting other works from different authors? Good luck in your endeavors, and I’ll be purchasing your next book as soon as it’s released