For those who've been following long elsewhere, and those who haven't, I've had some concerns over my publisher Musa lately. While they have paid on time, there were other issues that I, and other authors, have been having with them. Because of these issues, I'd decided to request an early rights reversion on Kitchen Witch and not to renew my contract on But I Never Said I Didn't Love You!. About a week later, I received my rights back on both books and set about figuring out what to do next. Self publishing both seems like a better option; it's difficult to get a publisher to even sneeze at a book that has already been published, much less twice like BINSIDLY, so I've been preparing for that.
About a week after that, I noticed some buzz on Facebook. There were a couple vague mentions about "my books are now homeless" but as I scrolled down, there was a post from somebody saying she'd received an email that Musa Publishing was closing operations. Several commiserated and offered condolences, so I quickly checked my email and found the same notice. This was pretty difficult for me to process; after having Aspen Mountain Press suddenly vanish out from under me, the publisher that was formed from that debacle was closing, as well.
Losing two publishers in about five years is enough to give you a complex.
Today is the last day of operations, so I have a lot of scrubbing I need to do (starting with the links and personal infoto the right!) Again, while it was nice to receive (semi-) regular royalty checks, I've had some issues with them, as have others, that are outlined over on the Absolute Write page about them. I even flounced briefly from AW because I didn't want to believe there were any problems with Musa but I was politely requested to return after the issues were confirmed.
After today, my books will no longer be available for sale through Musa or the usual outlets. However, I can say that they will be coming back shortly in one form or another. I can't let them go; one of the issues (there's that word again...) I've been having with myself is I've been wanting to build a viable career as a writer. It's almost, barely, kinda, sorta, not really, but just about happened, and I need to take it to a larger scale if I want something serious to come of it. It's going to happen, come Hell or high water, so I have a lot of work of ahead of me if I want it to. I'll post here and elsewhere when things gel, so keep an eye open for me later.
Thanks again to everybody who've offered their well wishes. I've really felt crushed by all of this, wondering how it's going to affect me. I just need to regroup and get my shit together because after all, tomorrow is the day after today.
