![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So I know a lot of people ask why I don't do more and why I need so much spare time...actually, no one asks that. Instead, let's talk briefly about 2013 and 2014 from a writing perspective, namely mine. The very condensed version is that I parted ways with one of my publishers for a variety of sound reasons, then nearly got picked up by another publisher before I had a nice attorney vet their contract. Nice attorney said bad idea, and I believed her, and thus I dodged becoming part of the Ellora's Cave disaster of 2014. However, that meant that I had spent a lot of time (2013-early 2014) writing book proposals, being depressed about my career, moving my mother across country, finishing a novel, working a day job and having my entire social network implode. Those were good times. But, I digress...
Around this time last year, there came rumblings at the day job which, due to a zillion years in corporate IT, I recognized as likely presaging eventual layoffs (projected timeline announced this week, as a matter of fact, but projected as slow moving). I decided that it was time to get my life back together. I spun off my erotica and erotic romance under Emily L. Byrne, wrote a bunch of stories and essays both as Emily and as myself and got a bunch of stuff either published or in the pipeline and started a whole bunch of financial planning on various fronts. I also took classes, talked to a lot of experts in various areas and bought a domain name. I decided that I would self-publish and see how that went, and maybe think about publishing other authors.
Then a friend of mine's publisher went belly-up and I realized that one of her series was exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to publish and could market (unlike previous publisher). I talked to her and she was amenable, but now I was tackling a bigger project than I had planned on. Fast forward through more elderly parent crises and other stuff and I got referred to a nice small business attorney. And found a web designer and a template and a terrific logo artist (S.L.Johnson). I'm most of the way through my business plan and have a full list of all the other things I need to do next. What I don't have in place yet includes my finalized LLC, my financial structure, books ready to go out the door yet, distribution accounts, submissions guidelines and all that good stuff. So we are still early in the process, but beginning to gain traction. Think of this as Update #1.
Here is a brief description and page proofs of the new logo (bliss!)
Around this time last year, there came rumblings at the day job which, due to a zillion years in corporate IT, I recognized as likely presaging eventual layoffs (projected timeline announced this week, as a matter of fact, but projected as slow moving). I decided that it was time to get my life back together. I spun off my erotica and erotic romance under Emily L. Byrne, wrote a bunch of stories and essays both as Emily and as myself and got a bunch of stuff either published or in the pipeline and started a whole bunch of financial planning on various fronts. I also took classes, talked to a lot of experts in various areas and bought a domain name. I decided that I would self-publish and see how that went, and maybe think about publishing other authors.
Then a friend of mine's publisher went belly-up and I realized that one of her series was exactly the sort of thing that I wanted to publish and could market (unlike previous publisher). I talked to her and she was amenable, but now I was tackling a bigger project than I had planned on. Fast forward through more elderly parent crises and other stuff and I got referred to a nice small business attorney. And found a web designer and a template and a terrific logo artist (S.L.Johnson). I'm most of the way through my business plan and have a full list of all the other things I need to do next. What I don't have in place yet includes my finalized LLC, my financial structure, books ready to go out the door yet, distribution accounts, submissions guidelines and all that good stuff. So we are still early in the process, but beginning to gain traction. Think of this as Update #1.
Here is a brief description and page proofs of the new logo (bliss!)
About Queen of Swords Press:
Queen of Swords is an independent small press, specializing in swashbuckling tales of derring-do, bold new adventures in time and space, mysterious stories of the occult and arcane and fantastical tales of people and lands far and near. What does that actually mean? It means our publisher likes all of the following: swashbuckling tales with female protagonists, people from wide-ranging cultural and racial backgrounds having adventures in outer space, LGBT and/or Q characters engaged in magic and swordplay and historically-flavored stories that reflect diverse casts of characters doing interesting things.