Changes

"Breathless Press has decided to close it's doors after a long year of declining sales. The decision came after a week long process of looking at options to keep the company open. Rather than leaving the authors high and dry, the company decided that the best option was to close before financial hardship hit them like so many other small presses. For those who are supporters, we thank you for your continued support."

This is never the news an author wants to read.

Like many small businesses around the nation the small presses were hit hard by the recession. Sales slowed for ebooks. As more books flooded the market it became harder to gain the attention of readers. According to the BBC only 11.5% of authors are able to earn a living from writing alone, and 5% of the world's authors take 42% of the profit earned. That's the death knell for small presses.

I'm not surprised Breathless Press is closing their doors. On the contrary, I'm impressed we hung on this long. Small presses have been drying up. Doors are closing across the English speaking world, and I've seen more than one author lose their press to this economic depression.

Breathless Press made the choice to close their doors before they went into the red. It's a good choice. It means everyone gets paid.

This means that as of May 1st the Heroes and Villains books will no longer be available for sale from Breathless Press. I will be taking the rights to the books, evaluating the market, and then re-releasing them. I'm still undecided about how to handle this, but I will keep you updated.

This also means that any future Heroes and Villains books will most likely be self-published. I'll do everything in my power to retain the quality of the books and either hire the cover artist who worked on the books for Breathless Press or someone who can imitate her style (should she be unavailable).

In many ways I'm very lucky. I've been a hybrid author from the start and I never built my career around the idea of only having one press publish my work. This is a bump in the road, but my major concern is for the editors, artists, and other people who ran Breathless Press. If you know of someone who needs an editor or cover artist, I have some names to share with you.

I will keep you posted on what's happening. For those who are avid readers of the Heroes and Villains series I promise you that Book 4 is in the works. It's taken a back seat to JANE'S SHADOW since the move, but it's there, it will be written, it will be published in some form or another this winter. Whether I serialize it on the blog or self-pub or find another publisher, I won't leave the series hanging.