The day after my last post I learned that my publisher, Booktrope, is going out of business at the end of May. This isn’t entirely unexpected as there had been some recent turnover and drama, but it’s certainly darned inconvenient.
I’ll leave the analyses to others who are more in the know about the inner workings. I’ll just say that for me, this leaves me with some decisions to make – do I go back to self-publishing, or do I look for another publisher? If I look for another publisher, do I go for one of the big ones or try out another small press?
I am grateful for some things: I have already learned a lot about self-publishing; since Raising John was a republish, I had only one creative team member – my cover designer – to compensate; I didn’t have pie-in-the-sky dreams about Booktrope. I know that no publisher is a miracle worker and expected from Booktrope about what I got – an imprint, an infrastructure for getting my books into bookstores and e-book outlets and (eventually) libraries.
I haven’t completely figured out my strategy yet, but I think I’m going to put my energy into finishing the sequel to Raising John, and in figuring out my branding, and go from there.
Jennifer Lesher 