I’m not doing well this week. It’s actually been a few weeks – I’ve had Previous Day Job Levels of Stress. I may talk about some of that later.

Thank goodness for amazing therapists, but it’s weird how something hard hits RIGHT AFTER the ding dong session. Which is what happened yesterday.

Many of you are friends on Facebook and already know this news, but it hit me pretty hard.

Yard Dog Press is closing down in November.

There are many reasons for this. If you’re friends with Selina Rosen, then you know. One of the reasons has been slow book sales. This is an issue with all small presses, but especially since the pandemic. Some presses just couldn’t recover.

I just made my last book order from them. And that hit way harder than I thought it would.

Yard Dog Press gave me my first break. When I transitioned from fan fiction wanna be writer to originals, Selina was one of the first editor/publishers I was introduced to. She bought my first story, “The Pack” (an original fable about a puppy – main moral is be yourself. Second moral is always listen to your mother). I still sell the heck out of that anthology – More Stories That Won’t Make Your Parents Hurl.

Yard Dog allowed four weird redheaded authors – who’d done some work with them before – challenge their way into a 4 title franchise called The Four Redheads of the Apocalypse. Selina and Lynn allowed themselves to be incorporated into the universe. Selina has always been our best boss and Satan character.

Selina bled red ink on my first solo novel and made it better. She made me a better writer. She also taught a LOT of us what it means to be professionals at conventions. To shut up when Bigger Name Authors were on panels, but to also participate and entertain.

The ENTIRE reason I have absolutely NO FEAR of public speaking now is because of an innumerable Yard Dog Press Traveling Road Shows making a complete fool of my self through skits, “interpretive dance”, and improv.

We will get all our rights back by the end of the year, but we’re all going to need time to figure out what we’re doing with those titles. Which is why I just ordered my last batch of books to have in stock for conventions and book fairs until I figure out what’s next. I do have some thoughts…

So if you want the OG Yard Dog Titles – you have until November. You can go to the Yard Dog Press Author Page and scroll down to my name. That’ll take you to links – or check my book page…ugh, going to have to edit that soon – but not yet.

This is definitely a loss to the publishing world, but I understand why it’s all happening. We’ll see what the next chapter holds.