Almost Time

Wow. My publishing company, Musa Publishing, is six hours away from opening.

I'm not going to blog much about Musa here. This is my writing blog, not my Musa blog.  But today is kind of a special day for me.  All those times I sat around in my darkened office, grumbling over a beer and a smoke and saying, "If I was a publisher, I wouldn't be THIS stupid." are coming back to haunt me now.  Now OTHER people will be saying that about ME.

Hopefully not.

At the moment, I think we're in outstanding shape.  We have a HUGE release schedule, going to 7 or 8 books a week by December.  We have a core of 80 authors and 24 staff members, and everything has been working so well. Everyone is excited and putting their best foot forward and we are turning out some amazing books. You can take a look at our initial offerings at www.musapublishing.com to see what I mean.

AND, that includes the Aurora Regency imprint I slaved over the past year and a half.  We managed to buy the imprint from the original publishing company.  While it felt a little...erm...unfair that I paid to get my own work, I was extremely happy that the Aurora authors--all of whom are friends of mine now--were freed from the fiasco now ongoing over there.

I can't even express how much of a relief it is to believe in the publishing experience again.  The pressure is gone. The stress is totally different--still stress, but pleasant now. Everyone has been excited and just happy to be working to create something instead of trying to fix it.

Do I think we've solved all the problems of small press publishing? *snort* No. Duh. But I do think we've resolved the issues that were driving us mad at our previous publisher.  If nothing else, this company will never suffer from lack of communication, or transparency involving royalties, or books that don't come out on time. That much I can promise.

As for the rest? We'll tackle it as it comes.  Feeling optimistic for the first time in a long time.  If what we are doing helps to bring confidence and joy to the authors we publish, then that's more than enough for me.

Welcome, Musa.