I’m guessing by now some of you are wondering if I am in fact a comet – I briefly appear, only to disappear again leaving people to wonder if there is any pattern to my orbit (and thus my appearances). This month the thing that took me away from writing my blog was our government – in particular the IRS. In short, I needed to send out 1099-MISC forms to our authors by January 31st, which means I don’t really get until April 15th to worry about my taxes like most people.
At the beginning of a new year, most people write resolutions (like “I will blog regularly”), which they promptly ignore as soon as their orbits take them someplace else. Instead I wanted to write a list of the things I didn’t do last year and why they are important. If nothing else, this list will give Jen Corkill, our new Senior Editor (congratulation Jen), something to point to as she kicks me in the butt to remind me why I need to do something.
- I’ve said this before: while our website is functional, it is not flashy. It’s also probably not someplace where the “hip and cool” kids want to hang out. We need to make our website much more interactive so that people will not only want to visit the site, but will want to stay a while and browse. This is the best way we can get the readers of one of our authors who visit our site to “discover” the other authors we’ve published, and we owe this to our authors as a way of helping them market their books.
- As part of our new website, we had planned an online magazine (which would also be available in eBook format) that would contain a mixture of short stories, author interviews, and useful articles for authors on what we are looking for in the way of new titles. This is one of many ways we can keep the content on our website from becoming static, and we need to move forward with the magazine this year.
- I must admit that I’ve never been much into social networking. Perhaps it’s because I’m usually up at 2 am typesetting manuscripts, working on cover art, or sending emails and find I just don’t have time for it. But in the age of digital publishing, it’s recommendations from others that make people buy books, and the best way to have a large group of people discover a new book is through social media. This means it’s time for me to once in a while turn off the desktop publishing software and my email in order to take a stroll into what some people now consider the “real world” – or as real as the world can get on the internet.
- People don’t walk into a bookstore and say “I would like to buy the latest book by Divertir Publishing” – they walk in and say “I would like the latest book by a certain author.” But while it is true that authors need to actively promote their books by doing things like blog tours and setting up an author site, we need to get better at helping authors get started with what to some is considered a daunting task – marketing. This goes hand-in-hand with updating the website – we need to be actively searching for places (like other web sites and blogs) for our authors to promote their books, because at the end of the day their success is our success.
- I have always believed that short story collections are important for publishers in that they are a great way to expose the work of a large number of writers to an audience at one time. I must also admit they are one of my favorite things to read. Divertir Publishing started by publishing short story collections, and I think it’s time we get back to publishing more of them (and maybe even trying to do a poetry collection again – the last one was cancelled because we did not get enough submissions). Other than the fact some of my favorite authors write short stories, it makes good business sense to begin working on more anthologies again.
In September Divertir Publishing will be celebrating our fifth anniversary. This is no small event, in that 95% of new publishers do not survive past their second year. I want this year to be special, and think we have the staff in place to make that happen. If you are interested in joining us in making this a special year, either by reviewing submissions we are considering for publication, editing a short story collection, or providing content for the online magazine (either short stories or articles), feel free to contact me at info@divertirpublishing.com.
Now I just need to settle into a more predictable orbit…
Divertir Publishing 