A Note About The Long Goodbye

A few things to note before I get to the post: during Samhain's close, books will be for sale! So if there's a book you want, go ahead and buy it. Samhain will let everyone know when the books will no longer be available, and believe me, so will the authors. Also, the authors will continue to get paid, so don't worry that we're getting shafted. We're not. I would trumpet it if we were, believe me.

Now to the post:

All right. By this time everyone knows that Samhain Publishing will be closing its doors. And some of you are probably wondering why I haven't commented on it much.

Shock. Sheer, unadulterated shock. I didn't see it coming, and part of me is still reeling.

See, Samhain was my first publisher, the one who took a chance on me when everyone else said "no". So for that alone they had my loyalty.

Dana's first-ever book.

Add in the wonderful editors I was always lucky to have, like Angela James and Tera Cuskaden, the awesome artwork on my books, and the fact that problems, if any, were explained and fixed without leaving us, the authors, in the dark for very long, and you had a wonderful publisher to work for.

So, yeah. I'm kind of in mourning for them. I can't even imagine what Christina Brashear, the owner, is going through. She put her heart and soul into her company, so to have it begin to die has to have her in mourning hell. I think all of us who worked for them will, to some extent or another, mourn the loss of Samhain.

But I have no doubt Chris Brashear will come through this. She's strong, that lady. (Don't tell her I said this, but she kind of scares me a little. But in a good, "Where's my book?", hovering over me sort of way.) And she's making sure Samhain goes out as classy as possible, by taking care of her authors and making sure we're in the loop as she, and her company, go through this rough time.

In the meantime, there's work to be done.

For me, it means that I have a little time to decide what I'm going to do next. And I do have some ideas. The first ones involved a lot of chocolate and some sobbing, but I'm over that now. Mostly. The rest of my plans involve possibly finding an agent (I've never had one before), subbing elsewhere and, if necessary, looking into self-publishing. I'm not going to stop writing any time soon, so don't be afraid that your favorite stories are going to abruptly stop. They won't. They'll just have new homes.

Needless to say, most of the Coming Soon stuff I posted isn't going to happen, not yet anyway. I'll be changing that by the end of the week, probably with more chocolate, sobbing and dog kisses to make me feel better (and steal my chocolate. Don't worry, I won't let her have any.)

However, I will continue my series for Carina Press over the next few months while I research my options and figure out where to go from here. That means I plan on finishing More Than Words and starting work on The Hour of the Wolf, the next Maggie's Grove book and the last of the inner dryad circle. (The one after that involves a bunny and a dragon. Heh.)

It also means that covers will change, damn it. I'm sorry about that, but I don't own the artwork that's on my covers. I only own the content of the book. Wherever the books wind up, I'll do my best to make sure they get the best artwork I can.

God damn it, Julian. I love you('re cover).

There's not much more to say, other than It's all about the story. And that story was wonderful while it lasted. Like all good stories there's an end, but hopefully a sequel will come down the pike. We all know how much I love a good sequel. So please remember: we, the authors, we're not down, and we're certainly not out.

We're just preparing for the sequel.

P.S.: Those who wrote to me to let me know they loved me, thank you. I love you guys to. You're the reason I keep going, even on the bad days. And knowing I've brightened someone's day makes mine, so thank you.